


with a reverence incurred

by kazul9



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Badass Katsuki Yuuri, Consentacles, Cuddling, Don't copy to another site, Eldritch Monsters, Explicit Consent, First Time, Gods, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Non-Consensual Restraint, Non-Explicit Sex, Tentacle Sex, Tentacles, Yeah I know that one doesn't match the rest bear with me, by an OC, monster violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2020-01-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:09:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21515821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kazul9/pseuds/kazul9
Summary: Yuuri's spent years searching the world for answers about his own existence. It's been decades, maybe even centuries, though that should be nothing to an ageless being like himself.But it's frustrating. It'saggravating.The last place he expects to find answers is a sleepy, seaside town.The last way he expects to find them is in the shape of an ordinary man.
Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov
Comments: 250
Kudos: 307
Collections: BaconExchange2019





	1. Sound

**Author's Note:**

  * For [deripmaver](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deripmaver/gifts).



Yuuri doesn’t remember how he came to exist.

It’s not that most people remember how they were born. Perhaps their parents might have a story, if said person had those sorts of people in their lives. Something heartwarming and precious.

But Yuuri’s parents don’t remember how Yuuri, or his sister, or themselves came to exist.

Perhaps it was too traumatic to remember.

Perhaps it was too much for any mind to comprehend.

Perhaps it’s because they aren’t mortals in the first place, and beings of other natures don’t need to explain their existence with things that make sense.

It doesn’t stop Yuuri from trying to make sense of it, though.

Years ago he left his family in the inky black depths of the ocean to explore the shallower, brighter world.

He has vague recollections of shallower waters from decades, maybe even centuries past, but those vague memories do it no justice. The waters around the world vary so much.

There are some so frigid that Yuuri worries he might freeze if he stays still for too long. There are giant things in these waters, bigger than him at his largest form, but creatures smaller than him, too. They’re incredibly fatty creatures, and Yuuri enjoys the flavor enough to hunt often while he’s there.

There are waters warm enough to rival the heat of the geysers that his family tend to back home, thousands of feet deeper in the darkest depths. Everything is so _colorful._ The fish, the coral, the flora. Here the wildlife is delicious in a different sort of way, but Yuuri can’t say he doesn’t enjoy hunting them, either.

There are great wooden masses that run along the surface of the water, and though they themselves aren’t alive, they hold living things. Yuuri discovered this when he came up to investigate, finding that these things—humans, he vaguely recalls—look like himself in his smallest form, and they all point and yell at him. For a moment it seems that they’re trying to get his attention, and Yuuri hesitates for a moment, curious.

Until they start launching sharp, metal things at him.

They’re _fools_. They don’t understand that nothing so flimsy could pierce his skin, but the insult _stings,_ and so he unfurls himself, his largest form, and covers the ship before crushing it as easily as if it were made of flimsy seaweed.

Yuuri finds out then that he’s not too fond of the taste of human.

Most of his time he finds himself scouring the ocean floor, sliding around for any clue, or anything familiar to hint at where he’s from. He finds the bones of ancient creatures, the remnants of civilizations long past, languages he both can and cannot read—but nothing on him, or this kind.

He’s not sure if this should surprise him or not.

But in the end, it doesn’t.

A frown becomes perpetually etched onto his face as he wanders at random, avoiding the human vessels and the life within the sea both. If there’s nothing in the water, well, he has to go above it.

And he _shouldn’t_. He flinches away from just the suggestion; he knows better. Though he may not remember why, the rest of him does, tremors running across his skin at the thought.

But before he left his family said he shouldn’t search the oceans, that it’s too dangerous. And he’s survived for years upon years out here, hasn’t he? And knows that there might not even be any answers up there. The ocean is empty, might the land be, as well?

Fear is an emotion he knows intimately. It haunts his every thought and his every movement.

But sometimes there are emotions that overwhelm the fear.

Yuuri’s not sure what runs through his veins now as he searches for a shore worth stepping onto, but it tingles and it burns like nothing in the ocean ever could.

Finally, he finds a beach without too many people settled onto it, but enough that there might be information lurking among them, a place that feels _right_. He pulls himself tighter, smaller, into his form that will let him blend in amongst the humans for the most part, and he rises from the water.

It feels… raw. Bare. Without the pressure of the ocean against his skin, it’s as if he’s lost a layer of himself and he’s truly exposed for the first time.

He tells himself that, at least. That it’s the fear of _new_ and not the trembling warning in his gut telling to turn around, to swim far, far away and never take a breath of air again.

But he can’t turn around. Not now. Not yet.

“Oh!”

Yuuri turns and blinks, squinting until his eyes focus.

There is a human on the beach. Perhaps a woman, though gender is such an archaic concept. Her hair is tied back, illuminating her wide, brown eyes, and she wears a loose white top with a deep red skirt that is long enough to cover her feet. And her face is… red? Flushed. Embarrassed, almost, as she looks Yuuri up and down, and…

Ah. Humans cover themselves with fabric more often than not, don’t they? They have… clothes. And now Yuuri doesn’t even have the layer of water protecting him, bare in every way possible.

He stifles the overwhelming urge to turn around and crawl back into the ocean.

“You… are you o-okay?” She finally manages, meeting Yuuri’s gaze and pinning him down. It’s a good thing she speaks one of the human tongues that Yuuri knows. He hasn’t studied too many spoken tongues while scouring the world for information. But this is one his family uses sometimes and it’s… nice.

Yuuri opens his mouth and attempts to make a sound, to move the much lighter air in and out of his lungs as opposed to water, but it’s been so long since he’s done this—that is, assuming he’s ever done it before.

“Are you…” She clears her throat. “Were you in a shipwreck? I heard there was a great beast spotted off the coast recently.”

Yuuri tries for anything moment to get words out before he huffs out a breath and simply nods.

The woman gives a tentative smile. “I’m Yuuko.”

Yuuri breathes in deeply, fighting until he finally manages some gravelly approximation of a voice, “Yuu… ri…”

Yuuko’s mouth parts slightly, as if not expecting to hear Yuuri’s voice, before she holds out her hand, and Yuuri reaches back—

And she gasps and pulls her hand away. “A-Are you all right?”

Yuuri blinks, and then holds up his arms. There’s always been black along his fingers and the back of his hand, no matter his form. But Yuuko’s hands have no such color.

Ah. He should have known it would be harder than just stepping out of the water and blending in with the humans. He stifles a sigh.

She tentatively, slowly reaches out and places her hand on Yuuri’s shoulder. “Would it be all right if I take you to where I live, so that I can make sure that you’re all right and to get some clothes for you? I think my husband’s clothing will be a little large, but it’s better than nothing.”

He doesn’t really like the idea of being covered, of being restricted, but all the same, he manages to nod and Yuuko, and she turns him and leads him toward the growth and greenery along the shore.

She stays quiet as they make their way down a twisting trail, and Yuuri’s grateful for that. He needs to get more used to these vocal cords before he uses them again. It’s strange, though; nowhere in his memory does he remember speaking in this form, but his voice is familiar in a way that almost makes him realize he’s _missed_ talking like this. But how? He doesn’t even like to talk very much in the first place…

Before Yuuri can think too much about it, they leave the brush and emerge into a clearing, a small, quaint house built in the center of it upon a little hill. There manages to be a second level to it, though not much of it, and a number of the thin doors along the sides are open, hopeful for a breeze in the heavy, humid heat.

“I know it’s not much.” Yuuko gives him a small smile. “But it’s home! The old shrine is much more impressive, but, well. The local god has long since… been indisposed, and others figured it could be put to better use when there was no one and nothing to worship there.” A flash of a scowl and narrowed eyes flashes across Yuuko’s face, but it’s quickly wiped away by her usual grin. “We still perform our priestly duties here, though.”

“But… why?” Yuuri manages, wishing he could get out more without taking so much time. There’s no reason to worship a god that’s not there, much less one that’s abandoned them.

Yuuri’s family doesn’t worship any of the old gods. It’s not like any of them care about the lot of them deep in the sea. Yet Yuuri has no sympathy for a god that has abandoned the people who relied on them, regardless.

Yuuko gives a sad little smile. “Hope? Trust? Honestly, I’m not really sure anymore. It’s been such a long, long time that I…” She looks at the house for a moment, and then clears her throat. “Well, it doesn’t matter! Let’s go inside, yes?”

Before Yuuri can even answer her, she’s pushing him forward and they’re traveling through the small rooms. Or, _most_ of them are small. As they’re moving, Yuuri catches sight of a larger room with a shrine inside through a half-shut door, and then they’ve gone up a flight of stairs, and Yuuko’s pressed a pile of clothing into his arms. It takes him a little longer than he’d like to admit and a _lot_ of fumbling to get it on, and Yuuri instantly wants to take it off. It’s too _hot,_ it’s too _much_. But he has to blend in…

So with a shrug, he leaves the room. Yuuko’s waiting just outside, and does apoor job of hiding her laughter as she fixes how the cloth falls across his shoulders and the tie at his waist, and then checks him over for injuries. He has none, of course, and she puzzles a little over this before sighing and getting up.

“Well, you seem okay, other than… well, your fingers, and… and that mark on your lower back.” She sighs again, and heads to open a window, letting in a much-needed waft of fresh air.

Yuuri frowns. His lower back? His hands are normal, his whole family has marks as if they’d stuck their hands in their own ink. But none of them have anything on their lower back. And they’ve never mentioned it? Or… or maybe they had? His memory of the early days are foggy, at best.

He spends a moment twisting and turning, but he can’t see anything with this garment on him, so he huffs and follows Yuuko’s gaze out of the window.

And the breath catches in his throat. There’s a mass of a building in the distance, rising tall above the trees, up on a large hill. Even from this distance, Yuuri can see delicate details and many statues, and he has to wonder how it would look up close. Something in him tugs at his chest, pulls at him to go and see this grand building unlike anything he’s ever seen before. Humans have been mostly pests to him, curious things that sidetrack him from his hunt, but they’re capable of creating great things too, apparently.

Yuuko shifts, Yuuri’s attention snapping back to her. “You like it?” She gives a wry smile. “That’s the old shrine—or well, nowadays it’s Hasetsu’s Castle. A monument that the townspeople built in gratitude of our god. Well, when he was here. The stories say it was breath-taking when it was in use for worship.”

“Can... can we… go?”

Her smile drops, and she shakes her head violently. “No. You shouldn’t go there. Not ever.”

Yuuri hesitates, but still nods, even as his mind races.

He wasn’t supposed to leave his family.

He wasn’t supposed to go onto the shore.

What can it hurt to look at a building?

Mortals can’t kill him and the god is long since gone, if Yuuko’s to be believed. Gods are something Yuuri wants nothing to do with; maybe they would have his answers, but they’re the only beings in existence that are a threat to Yuuri, and he can risk angering them when he doesn’t even know what he _is_. He’s not risking death—not yet, anyway.

He’s ripped apart legions of humans and their weapons throughout his travels. Nothing in this place will stop him.

Scowling at his unwavering concentration on the castle, Yuuko tugs him to his feet and drags him back downstairs where he meets the children. Three of them.

He’s not entirely sure how to react around such tiny beings, but luckily he doesn’t _have_ to react much. They do as they like anyway. They chitter and chatter and drag him around, and he lets them do so with an amused sort of air. He’s an ancient being that could crush this entire town if he liked, and yet he’s being man-handled by creatures who have only been alive for the blink of an eye.

The chaos settles slightly when the children’s father comes home, or maybe that’s just because the triplet’s attention travels to him instead of Yuuri. He’s a nice man named Takeshi, though he’s a little more exuberant than Yuuri’s used to. Certainly he’s more enthusiastic than anyone should be to have a foreign, strange, too-quiet guest in their house. But Yuuri ends up in a hug that lifts him off the floor, and it’s… _very_ strange.

What’s even stranger is that it’s almost a little… nice. Yuuri feels that he might enjoy it, even as it confuses him.

Luckily, Takeshi lets him escape and brings him into town to find proper clothes and get some supplies for their shrine. He makes Yuuri wear gloves, which itch and make his hands sweat in the heat, but Yuuri doesn’t dare take them off. He needs the people here to trust him enough to talk, to see if this is a good place to start is search.

Even if the ones he met are weirdly accepting of his abnormalities.

Takeshi chatters the whole way about his wife and his daughters, extremely proud of them even if Yuuri doesn’t exactly have the context for most of the things that he boasts about. He spends a lot of the journey nodding and attempting to smile.

By the time they reach the town, Yuuri’s _tired_. He doesn’t need to sleep often, but it’s been a while, and for some reason having to interact with these people is particularly exhausting. He’s fought great fleets and even greater monsters, but it seems like listening and talking to humans, of all things, is what ultimately does him in.

So Yuuri stays quiet while Takeshi talks up shop keepers, who seem to be very interested but readily accept the excuse that Yuuri was shipwrecked and just needs clothes and food and time to heal before heading back home.

Honestly, it’s a terrible excuse on both their parts. Wouldn’t Yuuri be bedridden or at least more injured if he’d been shipwrecked and washed up on shore?

But either the humans are morons, or they’re too polite to ask for the truth. No matter the truth, Takeshi gets away with it, and Yuuri keeps his mouth shut.

He tries to pay attention to the small details, the relationships between everyone, but… Yuuri’s gaze keeps getting drawn back to the castle, closer now than before. Nothing else seems to be quite as interesting; it’s an old village, and there’s a lot of history here, but Yuuri sees nothing resembling him or his family among the buildings and people.

The only exceptional thing here is the castle.

Takeshi’s hand falls on Yuuri’s shoulder, making him jump slightly as his focus snaps away from the tall building.

“You really like the castle, huh?” Takeshi still smiles at him, but his eyes are narrowed just enough that it doesn’t match his expression. Yuuri can’t tell if it’s suspicion or concern, but he doesn’t like it either way.

For one second Yuuri hesitates, his eyes flicking back to the castle again before he nods. If he has to lie too much, he’ll start being unable to keep them straight. And besides, what could a mere mortal like Takeshi do to a being like Yuuri? His interest in the castle is none of his concern.

“Admiring it from afar would be best.” Takeshi’s smile falters, just barely. “It’s dangerous up there.”

Yuuri clears his throat, stumbling through his words for a moment before managing, “How?”

Takeshi’s quiet as his gaze turns to castle itself, looking at it the same way that Yuuri would look at a sea serpent twice his size; eyes sharply focused, mouth a thin, determined line. Like it’s a formidable enemy, but one that must be destroyed, regardless. Finally, he says, “Ghosts lurk there. Ones that are far too dangerous for either of us to look at.”

Yuuri meets Takeshi’s eyes, a spark of defiance burning in his belly. Dangerous? For _him_?

He knows he has no right to feel offended when no one even has a hint of what he truly is, but he’s already tired of being underestimated. Of being told a _building_ is too much for someone like him to take on.

He’d already been tempted to go and see the castle when no one would notice, but this confirms it.

He’s faced the greatest dangers that the deep has to offer for even the hope that he might find what he’s looking for—something he’s never even come close to grasping. He’s broken every rule he’s ever held himself to. He’s survived them all.

Yuuri meets Takeshi’s eye and nods.

He understands the warning.

And he’ll ignore it, anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey revampired!!! I tried to hit your entire list as best I could (in a relatively T-rated fashion), so I hope you enjoy this fic! I know the first chapter is mostly build-up, but the Good Stuff starts next chapter. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
> 
> This was written for the Bacon Exchange aka the exchange that we ended up doing on my Discord server! :D Naturally the best time to post all the fic/art would be on Yuuri's birthday, right? Check out all the fics in the Bacon Exchange collection that this fic is in, and keep an eye out for art on Tumblr/Twitter. We might do another exchange or bang/collection again at some point (there's talk of a fluff one!), so keep an eye out for that, too!!!
> 
> Anyhow, I'm guesstimating how long this will be since NaNoWriMo kicked my BUTT with Just Let Our Walls Cave in (though that's completely written now!), but I plan on updating on either Thursdays or Fridays until it's done. :D
> 
> Thank you so, so much to [stammiviktor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stammiviktor/pseuds/stammiviktor) for betaing this mess! And thank YOU guys so much for reading!!! <3 If you liked it, please consider throwing a comment down below! Comments are writer fuel and make me nyoom faster
> 
> [Discord Server](https://discord.gg/hmvKrGp) | [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Kazul9) | [Curious Cat](https://curiouscat.me/Kazul9) | [Tumblr](https://kazul9.tumblr.com/) | [Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.social/kazul9)


	2. Sight

The daytime havoc of the Nishigoris’ shrine carries into the evening. Every once in a while someone will interrupt to come and pray and leave a tithe, but they’re always quiet, quick, and of old age—though not nearly as old as Yuuri is. He might not know the date of his birth, but he knows enough that many human generations have come and gone during his time in existence.

But, eventually, the chaotic children run out of energy and head off to sleep, their parents practically collapsing after they’re settled.

Yuuri’s tempted to join them. His limbs feel heavier than usual, and his eyelids ache to close. But he’s gone longer without sleep, and he has a point to prove and a curiosity to sate.

He sneaks through the house, slinking around the shadows and avoiding the floorboards he’d noted were particularly creaky earlier. There’s not even a stutter of the sleeping breaths in the rooms surrounding him as he goes. Why would they guess that he would be sneaking out, after all? They could tell that he’s exhausted, which makes sense with the shipwreck story—even if the shipwreck story itself doesn’t make sense

But he’s not about to question a good thing.

So he slips from the house, following the path that he and Takeshi took earlier. He avoids the moonlight, sticking to shadows as he makes his way toward the far side of town, where he and Takeshi never went near.

It’s nicer, here. Yuuri’s not entirely sure what makes it nicer, but maybe it’s the newer material of the buildings, the fresher colors. It’s not as dirty here either, though it’s not like where Takeshi and he did business was downtrodden. It was just more… quaint.

But the closer and closer he gets to the castle, the less he can say that about the buildings. They get larger and more impressive—until he stands within the shadow of the castle itself, and it makes everything before it seem insignificant.

It’s… It’s _massive._ Yuuri can’t even guess how many floors that it has within that giant shell. Surrounding it is an ornate wall, the area around it flooded with the light of lanterns and the rustle of guards in dark armor that move in jerky sort of movements that Yuuri’s never seen in humans before.

Narrowing his eyes, Yuuri slithers around the halo of light that surrounds the wall, until he comes to a dark spot. He lets some of his other form seep through the cracks and reaches up with more limbs than he had before, taking a hold of gaps and fractures in the wall as he pulls himself over and falls to the soft ground.

It’s a garden. It’s probably gorgeous and colorful by the light of day, but in the dark of a half-moon’s light there are only masses and tendrils of black reaching up and around him.

But there’s no real threat here among them. There really is no god here. Not that Yuuri’s had much personal experience with gods other than seeing their aftermath, and sometimes feeling the tingle of their magic in the waters as they do their miracles in the distance. Every time he senses one, something in Yuuri flinches back, makes him instantly turn and run at even the notion of a god in his vicinity. He’d assumed that it was a universal reaction—gods are the apex predator on the food chain. It’s only natural.

But, no. The humans adore gods, they worship them and feed them power and faith and _let_ them take hold of their entire lives.

Yuuri shivers. He would never want anything like that. He’s happy he’s something higher on the food chain than humans, something _other_ , especially if that would have been the fate in store for him.

He makes his way through the garden like a shadow himself, carefully avoiding making any noise, and stilling at any rustling in the brush. A guard does pass by, but it’s only one, and then it’s relatively clear.

Yuuri huffs softly. Too dangerous for someone like _him_. If anything, this is too boring. It’s just a building. This is silly. He should really head back and get some sleep, then maybe he’ll move on to find a bigger city…

“ _Yuuri_ …”

Yuuri’s head snaps up, looking up and searching the windows until he finds one open with a dim light inside. Maybe he misheard… No. That was his name. That was _definitely_ his name.

But no one here would know him. No one here would dare speak his name, if they knew what he was. The family he’s staying with are all far too terrified to be here, and… well, maybe _this_ is why.

Still, they said that the gods have abandoned this place. Whatever faint magic the humans managed to get their hands on will be nothing compared to his own power.

So just like he had at the outer wall, Yuuri unfurls and climbs. This wall is smoother than the last, but it doesn’t stop him. Whenever he can’t find a good foothold, he presses into the wall until it cracks, until he makes one for himself. It’s quick work with no noise from the ground before Yuuri’s at the window, only hesitating a moment before he slips into the dimly lit room, immediately falling back into the darkest corner it has to offer.

It’s a small area, lit only by one candle on the wall farthest from Yuuri, everything bare and dusty except… except for the man.

He’s held to the wall by what may be golden shackles, his long, thin body hanging down so that he’s sitting on the floor, his arms loosely upright above his head. His silver hair is long to the point that it pools around his waist. He’s gaunt, obviously having hung there for a while, his head hanging and keeping his face from view.

For a second, Yuuri suspects that he might be dead. It wouldn’t be unusual, humans are so very fragile after all, but…

Then the man looks up. His features may as well be cut from stone. His face is as starved as the rest of the body, but the beauty that it once held lingers in the slope of his cheekbones, in the graceful fall of his pale lashes. And… and those _eyes._ Yuuri’s never seen anything so terribly, amazingly _blue_. It makes something in his chest stutter and heat, and it’s weirdly more familiar and yet more alien than anything he’s ever felt before.

Yuuri can’t help it; he gasps.

The man smirks at the noise, his gaze focusing on the shadow that barely conceals where Yuuri stands. “Now now, there’s no need to hide.” His voice is low and rough, and yet somehow silky at the same time. “Come out, won’t you? It’s been so long since I’ve had a visitor.”

Yuuri hesitates for a long moment, the man’s gaze never faltering. It’s been a long time since he’s felt fear like this—a long time since he’s felt _anything_ other than hunger and want.

But if he doesn’t come out now, then what’s the point of this entire journey?

So Yuuri steps forward, and he lets himself unfurl. He keeps his human form, but from the inky splotches on his fingers grow claws that could gut even his own kind, and then from his back emerges his true nature. His mind flicks back to what Yuuko said, that he has a marking there—but it must have nothing to do with this. The rest of his family has no such marking. But it doesn’t matter here, now. From his back unfurls tentacles and two arms, as dark and pitch as the darkness that Yuuri steps from. They curl and writhe around Yuuri, making him larger and more ominous than he ever would on his own, and he stares at the tied man, looking down his nose in a challenge.

Which is easier said and done, when those bright blue eyes pierce and unsettle Yuuri’s otherworldliness, his power.

The _last_ thing on this man’s face is fear. If anything, his smile grows softer, and he looks at Yuuri’s tentacles with a fondness that doesn’t even remotely fit the situation. “Ah,” the man says, his eyes flicking up to meet Yuuri’s. His voice is roughed, clipped with an accent that’s familiar to Yuuri in the same way most things are—he’s seen and heard and done too much to place it. “I thought I sensed a presence like yours out there.”

Yuuri flinches back before quietly hissing at himself. He has no reason to be afraid of this… this _man_. “What? You don’t know me.”

For a long moment the man stares at Yuuri—no, staring’s too weak of a word. He picks him apart, piece by piece, until whatever writhing mass of emotions that makes Yuuri himself is all that’s left in the very end. It takes all of Yuuri’s self-control not to turn around and leap from the window and back to where Yuuko and Takeshi slumber peacefully.

He _knows_ this man is just a simple mortal.

Why won’t his mind accept that?

The man lets out a small hum before he lets his head fall back and stares up at the candle above him. “No, I suppose I don’t.”

“But…” Yuuri clears his throat, trying to force his voice to be more firm. “You said my name.”

The man’s eyebrows raise, though he still doesn’t look at Yuuri. “Your name is ‘you’re here?’”

“Ah.” Yuuri’s tentacles writhe a little faster. “Then… you knew I was there?”

He scoffs. “Of _course_ I’d know when a fascinating creature like yourself is around. I knew the moment that you’d stepped on land and changed your form. It’s been many years since I’ve met one like you, it wasn’t as if I could ignore it.”

Yuuri’s breath catches in his throat, his eyes searching the man’s expression. “You know what I am?”

A grin spreads across his haggard, beautiful face. “Oh yes. Yes I do. I might even know best out of all the gods and monsters and mortals out there.”

Yuuri stands up a little straighter, his tentacles inching across the floor and toward the light. “Then you’ll tell me.”

That smile creeps back across his face as he tilts his head back up. “Oh? What do you have to offer me I exchange?”

“W-what?” Yuuri takes a step back as that eery, intense gaze falls back onto him.

“You don’t expect information that is so obviously important to you for _free_ , do you?” He laughs, but no humor laces it. “You should know that nothing in this world comes so easily as that.”

Yuuri almost laughs right back at him. He’s spent his entire life far from easy, uncomfortable in his skin in ways that he’s never found a way around. He tries to look for answers to who he is, to what he can do to be better and more whole, but it’s been a constant struggle to get anywhere, and now he has to jump through even more hoops to get a simple _answer_. Nothing in this life comes easily.

But instead of picking a verbal fight he isn’t sure he’ll win, Yuuri sighs and straightens his posture. “I can find you any treasure in the world, just name it.”

The man hums, his head tilting a but as he looks up at Yuuri. “No, I want what you have. Nothing you can give me that isn’t yours would be worth my time.”

“I don’t have anything,” Yuuri snaps at him, his fingers curling to more clearly display his claws. “Anything I’ve ever owned has long since been claimed by the sea. The only home I have to return to is hardly one I can consider mine anymore. These _clothes_ aren’t even mine.”

The man arches an eyebrow. “Is that skin yours? Is that mouth yours? Is your time yours?”

“I… suppose.” Yuuri grits his teeth. _Things_ Yuuri can part with. Himself, though? What of Yuuri could this ragged man want? And _why_ does something deep in Yuuri’s gut tug and twist to know?

The man leans back a little, he set of his mouth lazy.“Then you have what I want.”

Yuuri once again considers climbing out of that window and just leaving, but he _needs_ this. “What is it you want?”

“You.”

A moment passes while the man’s eyes don’t relent. He… he wants _Yuuri_? But why? In what way?

“Um.” Yuuri clears his throat. “ _What_?”

“You heard me. You could hear me speaking all the way from the ground, I know you heard me just now.”

“But… what do you mean?” Yuuri’s thoughts scramble for a moment, getting themselves in order. “Do you want a certain part of me? Some of my hair? Or do you want me as a slave? Do you want my body to—”

“No.” The man interrupts, voice firm. “I want your time, and your conversation. It gets lonely up here, you know. I just… I would enjoy some company.”

“Wouldn’t you rather be free?” Yuuri reaches out, tentacles curling toward the man’s restraints “I could just break or pick these—”

“ _No_.” His eyes flash with something other than blue, instead more like _white_ , like _ice_ —and then he winces. “No. I’ve earned my punishment, and I’ll pay my dues that others don’t have to. However, it gets a bit lonely at times. So, if you trade yourself and your time, I will trade you what I know. How does that sound?”

Yuuri takes a moment to look him up and down, even if there’s something in his gut that has already made up his mind. He’s been moving and searching for so long that his first instinct is to keep traveling, to brush off this problem and find someone who would be properly intimidated by who and what he is. He could even try to scare this man more, if he really wanted to. Frighten the answers out of him.

But though he’s not human, he’s not a monster. This man is already restrained and obviously weak, picking a fight with him wouldn’t be fair. Not that it’s ever truly fair when a human decides to fight an eldritch being, but at least there’s the illusion.

The only thing this will take is his time. He doubts he can stay here during the day—someone’s keeping this man alive, and the guards will be able to see him too easily in the light—but Yuuko and her family are obviously prepared to take care of him during the day, and he can continue to look for any hints he’s on the right track with them. If this man knows anything, there ought to be hints in the town around him.

Or at least that’s what Yuuri hopes.

Either way, time isn’t an issue. He has an infinite amount of it to waste how he pleases.

So he has no reason to go.

And, truthfully and illogically, he doesn’t _want_ to go.

“I accept.” Yuuri lifts his chin a little, narrowing his eyes a bit. “But if you try anything, I’ll strangle you.”

“Sounds excellent!” The man gives a smile, completely at odds with the concept of Yuuri’s tentacles wrapping around his neck. “I’m Victor, what— _oh_.” He pulls at his chains, as if trying to reach out to take Yuuri’s hand as the westerners that Yuuri’s observed seem to do—which is odd for a god that’s _here_ , but Yuuri isn’t one to judge with his travels—and then… this man, Victor, wilts.

Barely thinking about it, Yuuri snakes out a tentacle and wraps it around Victor’s hand and… the man shudders before gripping Yuuri’s tentacle back. It’s weak, but at the same time stronger than Yuuri would have expected from Victor’s frame.

It… It does something to Yuuri. He’s not used to contact with others, but it’s not something that he’s ever particularly craved, either. The warmth of it is nice, but it’s nothing compared to the relief of seeing Victor relax a little, see him breathing easier than he had been.

Yuuri doesn’t feel this deeply. He never has.

At least, so far back as he remembers.

“I’m Yuuri,” he manages, still holding his head high.

“ _Yuuri_ ,” Victor breathes, like the name means everything— _anything_ —to him. “I suppose we have ourselves a bargain.”

“We do.” Yuuri presses his lips into a thin line. “And as per our agreement, you owe me knowledge now.”

A laugh slips from Victor’s lips. “I suppose I do! Did you know—”

The doorknob rattles.

For a moment they both still, eyes meeting each other across the small room. Then the handle starts to turn, and Victor’s eyes widen before he mouths, “Go.”

And Yuuri should stay. He should fight, he _could_ fight.

But before he can think of anything else, he listens to Victor.

He goes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The boy! He is here!!! And the plot thickens ouo
> 
> Thank you so, so much to [stammiviktor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stammiviktor/pseuds/stammiviktor) for being an amazing beta!!! And bless all of you who are hanging around and reading this fic, and exra blessings for everyone leaving comments; you guys are the best!!! <3
> 
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	3. Touch

“You came back.”

Victor sounds _surprised_.

Yuuri frowns as he pulls himself into the dimly lit room—prison cell, really. Did Victor really think so little of him? “Of course I’m back. You promised me information.”

Victor hums, grinning to himself, swaying slightly and making his chains rattle—and making Yuuri wince. “I did, didn’t I? I suppose I owe you for last night, too, after… well.”

After the door handle had turned, and Yuuri had fled.

He has to wonder what happened after he left. Victor has no scars, and no scabs, and obviously no one was bringing him food that late in the day. But that isn’t the information that he’s here for, so Yuuri bites back the question.

“I suppose I’ll tell you something.” He shifts and tilts his head a little as he thinks, adjusting in his chains like he’s trying to get comfortable—but there’s no way he can be comfortable, can he?

It’s ridiculous to have a conversation like this when the solution to making him more content, maybe more willing to talk, is so easy.

Yuuri reaches out with his tentacles, wrapping them around the shackles at Victor’s wrists. “Will these hurt me if I take them off?”

Victor blinks. “Well, no—”

“Will they hurt you?”

This time, Victor takes a moment to answer, his eyes roving Yuuri’s face for a moment before answering, “No.”

“Then you don’t need them on.” Yuuri meets Victor’s eyes.

He gives Victor a moment to reply, but all that he gets in response is a nod, an approval, before Yuuri snakes his tentacles into the locks and starts to fiddle with the mechanisms. He’s practiced quite a bit on other human locks like this, learning how to manipulate the magic of his body to correct, unlock, and disarm any traps.

These are relatively simple, though, despite looking like they were made from material these creatures consider precious. One pops open, and then the other, and—and Victor falls forward.

Yuuri catches him before he even thinks about it, and Victor clings to him, grasping his tentacles tight as his breathing goes ragged.

But Yuuri doesn’t know what to do from there. Everything about him freezes as this mortal man crumbles and breaks apart in his arms. He doesn’t miss the way that Victor’s breath hitches, or the wetness that drips onto his tentacles, no matter how well Victor hides his face away behind that long, ragged hair.

He’s a being completely separate from humanity, he can’t be expected to… to _comfort_.

But he doesn’t pull away. He can’t.

“You don’t have to hold me up.” Victor may say the words, voice rough and small, but Yuuri’s not sure he means them. He still leans heavy into Yuuri’s tentacles, clinging to them like he may not be able to exist if he lets go.

And, if he really thinks about it, it’s no bother to Yuuri. If this is what Victor requires to recover and give him the information he needs, so be it. The man’s grip is so weak that it couldn’t hurt Yuuri even if he tried. It isn’t uncomfortable for Yuuri. And… if he allows himself to be completely honest, he likes Victor’s warmth. He likes his touch. It’s strange, he doesn’t like to be touched so much by strangers, by anyone who isn’t his family. And even then, he doesn’t seek it out. He doesn’t crave it.

But this… this touches on a need that Yuuri didn’t even know that he had.

Except that’s ridiculous. There’s no reason that a creature like him would crave touch. He must be empathizing too much with the man. A silly thing for something like him to do, but he can be a silly creature sometimes.

Knowing that doesn’t stop him from sitting on the floor near the man, though. It doesn’t stop him from keeping his tentacles around him. It doesn’t stop his hands from twitching to take Victor’s own, though he just barely resists that urge.

He doesn’t understand this. He doesn’t understand _anything_. It isn’t like he feels the need to do any of this sort of thing with Yuuko. In fact, a part of him cringes away from the idea of it.

But he doesn’t cringe away from this

 _Why_?

Victor sits up a little bit, managing to make himself look regal despite the fact that he was just collapsed in Yuuri’s many arms; and despite the fact that he’s still leaning so much of his slight weight onto Yuuri; _and_ despite the fact that he looks half-starved and half-dead.

Blue eyes meet Yuuri’s plain brown, and he can’t help but suck in a quiet breath. He keeps forgetting how striking they are. And now they’re so much closer than ever before…

“You look unhappy.” Victor raises an eyebrow, as if Yuuri has no reason to be unhappy, even though he’s the one using up Yuuri’s limbs, and Yuuri’s time, and Yuuri’s sanity.

“You haven’t told me anything yet.” Yuuri’s frown deepens as he tries to shake off the fragility threatening to settle into his bones. “I’m starting to think you were lying to me about knowing anything about me.”

“You don’t trust very easily.” Victor gives a small, easy smile, but his grip on Yuuri tightens, betraying… something. He’s not very sure. “I suppose I’ve given you no reason to trust me yet. It’s a miracle we’ve gotten this far. Well then, your first piece of information: did you know that you were created?”

Yuuri resists the urge to just let Victor go and fall to the floor, but he can’t. Instead, he scowls. “Everything was created. Even most of the gods were created at one point or another. Everything has an origin story, I just don’t know mine.”

Victor searches Yuuri’s face for a moment, and Yuuri fights back the slight warmth that threatens to crawl onto his cheeks. “Fascinating, truly. Well, you’re correct, but what you are right now, in this moment? Your form wasn’t born quite the same as most gods, and not remotely the same as any mortal. This is not your first life, but your second life. You began your existence in the shell of something else, before you were torn free, and now you exist… as this.” Those last words could and probably would be insulting from any other mouth, but Victor sounds so _fond_ , even Yuuri can’t take them that way.

“That…” Yuuri clears his throat. “That makes no sense.”

Victor shrugs. “Take of it what you will. You were once something else, before you were you.”

Yuuri’s claws spring to life on his hands, and he reaches out and takes Victor’s chin in his hand, almost shocked when Victor lets him manipulate his face as he pleases—but not quite. “I could just snap your neck and be done with you right now.”

“But will you?” Victor’s so earnestly curious, eyes bright, head tilting a little bit and putting more pressure on Yuuri’s claws—until one breaks the surface of his skin.

Yuuri hisses, leaning back and unraveling a tentacle from Victor to wipe away the drop of blood—and that’s it, it’s only a drop. It won’t even scar.

But Victor’s eyes practically sparkle, and Yuuri knows that he knows: Yuuri won’t. Yuuri can’t. He’ll keep coming back, even as he grows to loathe it.

Victor looks away, toward the window that Yuuri had climbed through earlier, the happiness fading from his expression as his face goes blank. “ I understand if you’re frustrated. You don’t have to support me sitting here, you know.”

“Can you support yourself?” Yuuri responds instead of his first instinct response: yes, I do have to support you. But he owes this man nothing, and they have a deal.

Victor laughs, though it doesn’t have any humor to it. “No, I suppose I can’t.”

“What happened?” Yuuri blurts out, giving in to this one question. “Why are you here? Like this?”

“Information like that comes at a cost.” Victor’s eyes flit back to Yuuri, and Yuuri isn’t sure whether he’s more relieved or uncomfortable.

“Fine.” It’s not like Victor’s being particularly helpful tonight, anyway. “Then you still owe me information for tonight. I want to know why you’re here.”

“That wasn’t the deal.” Victor’s face is still blank, but something lurks and creeps in at the edges, threatening to break through.

“Would you rather I leave?” Yuuri arches an eyebrow, his tentacles slowly sliding away from Victor.

Victor holds on tighter. “Fine. I’ll tell you.”

He’s so desperate for contact, for company. _Why_? But this isn’t a question worth using any debt toward. Yuuri’s gone long enough with dozens of unanswered questions weighing on his mind, he can add his one to the pile.

“I am, obviously, a prisoner.” Victor shrugs, the motion heavy. “I have angered the gods of the gods, the multiple consciousnesses in charge of the creation and maintenance of this world. Instead of the kinder option of killing me, they locked me away in a place far from where I was born, far from any friends or family. No one will come for me. No one _can_ come for me. They’ve assured that.”

“But… why? How?” Yuuri’s only ever _heard_ of gods that powerful, he wasn’t even sure they existed until right now—if this Victor is even to be trusted. To bypass the gods that cater to and are fed by mortals to anger the gods of those gods… He can’t even imagine anything you _could_ do to anger them.

“That’s a complicated story.” Victor shrugs it off, like it’s that simple.

“But you said you would tell me—”

“Why I’m here. And I did. Believe me, Yuuri. Knowing my crime is just as dangerous as committing it. Don’t ask me to condemn you like this.”

Yuuri shivers slightly. He still doesn’t know if Victor’s telling the truth, but he also can’t risk that he isn’t. He doesn’t even want to look at a god, much less anger them and have them hunt him. “You knew that wouldn’t satisfy me, didn’t you?”

Something sparks in Victor’s eyes, and he leans in a little closer, his thumb brushing Yuuri’s lip. “If you would like to be satisfied, Yuuri, all you have to do is ask.”

All Yuuri can do is stare. He should be insulted, probably. He shouldn’t be so easily dissuaded from Victor’s withheld information as this.

But Victor’s finger is so warm against his skin. He’s ever realized how _cold_ he is.

Victor pulls back far too soon, and Yuuri leans forward a little, chasing the touch.

“Well, I think that should be it for our time, tonight. The guards suspect something after last night. They’ll be coming to check on me soon. If you’d come earlier we might have had more time, but alas.”

Yuuri takes a moment to gather his thoughts back together, and this time he can’t fight the blush blooming on his skin. “Fine. I… I’ll leave.”

“Ah, but first.” Victor takes his hands from Yuuri’s tentacles and raises them above his head in a motion that’s far too slow and weak, wiggling them around a bit. “Time to put those shackles back on.”

Yuuri winces. “Can’t you put them back on yourself?”

Victor hums, considering. “Maybe the first one, but not the second. Besides, I’d rather have you do it.”

“Why?” Yuuri would rather not do it at _all_ —but he’d also rather not anger the gods of the gods. The idea of being restrained at all brings something bitter and vile into the pit of his stomach. He can’t imagine having some stranger do it for him, relinquishing what little control he has, would help.

“Because I would rather not remember the touch of the previous creature that put those shackles on me.” Victor’s eyes may be blue, but they _burn_. “I’d rather remember the touch of someone who would let me go, if I asked.”

And Yuuri… would he? Anger the powers that be, bring down the wrath of the most powerful forces in the world, just to free one single man?

He wants to say that he wouldn’t, but he’s already offered to free him in exchange for the information he needs, hasn’t he? Even before he knew why he was here, even knowing there’s something strange about this building and its guards.

He doesn’t know if he would do it, if Victor asked.

“Please,” Victor whispers, looking away and slumping a little.

Yuuri can only hesitate a moment before he gently unwraps a couple of tentacles from around Victor, instead wrapping carefully and gently around Victor’s wrists. They’re chafed and raw, and Yuuri carefully avoids the wounds as he moves Victor back into place.

His stomach churns as he picks up the cool metal, resisting the urge to see if he could crush it, to rip them off the wall and launch them out of the window.

It would hurt Victor more to not restrain him. Yuuri knows this. Victor’s obviously found no mercy in whoever his captors are—it’s not like he could even walk from this room if he wanted, he doesn’t need to be shacked. But his stomach still churns as he gently brings up the cold metal and places it around Victor’s red, abused skin, clicking it shut. He repeats the movements with the other shackle, hesitating just a little bit longer before he snaps it shut and lets his tentacles run down Victor’s arms.

Victor’s eyes are shut, and Yuuri can’t read his expression, and he… he _worries._ It eats at him, gnaws at him and tells him to run, tells him to stay, tells him to _do something_.

But all he does is brush along Victor’s neck and murmur, “I’m sorry.”

Victor’s eyes flutter open, and he smiles at Yuuri. It isn’t strained, but it doesn’t quite reach the sadness in his eyes. “No. Thank you. It’s been a long time since…”

Since what? Since he’s been touched? Since anyone’s cared? Since his shackles have even been off?

Yuuri doesn’t even dare to ask that question, knowing that Victor probably means all of the above. And Yuuri… Yuuri’s not sure he can stop himself from taking Victor from this room and bringing him somewhere _safe_.

Which is ridiculous. He owes this man _nothing_.

“Thank you,” Victor repeats, letting his eyes fall shut as he slumps forward, his restraints catching his weight.

Yuuri winces. That has to hurt against his wrists, but Victor doesn’t give a sign he feels anything.

“Now, before it’s too late. Go.”

And Yuuri… he doesn’t follow Victor’s direction as quickly this time. He takes his time to unwind from Victor, to pull back. He pretends not to notice the way that Victor chases Yuuri’s touch, the same as Victor doesn’t say anything about Yuuri taking too long to go.

Yuuri tries to think of something to say, something to do. He shouldn’t feel this way, not about a man who’s being more of a nuisance to him than anything. But he wants to stay. It’s the same feeling he had when he first left home, ages ago. An ache that he can overcome, that he will overcome, but doesn’t leave him no matter how much he wants it to.

But then the door begins to open.

And Yuuri flees.

###

Yuuri shouldn’t be getting comfortable in this small city that the Nishigoris call Hasetsu, but… he is. Well he’s comfortable most fo the time, anyway.

The triplets are still a lot for him to handle. He’s not very good with conversation with them or handling them, and that seems to only encourage them to drag him around more often, even as Yuuko and Takeshi chide them. Yuuri finds some of the human tasks he has to do around the shrine… difficult, to say the least. He had a few incidents with cooking that he’d rather not think about again.

But truthfully, he doesn’t mind helping them out. The tasks keep his mind quiet in a way that nothing in the endless waters of the ocean ever did. Yuuko and Takeshi are kind. He doesn’t flinch away from their touches like he used to want to. He’s not at home there, not without his family around, but… it might be something close.

And then there’s Victor.

He’s visited him every single night. He doesn’t get much sleep this way, the Nishigoris have found him napping in some strange places—they’ve tripped over him on the floor a few times—since he has no time to get the sleep his body seems to need, lately.

And it’s both worth it and not.

Yuuri does learn more about himself. He learns how to manipulate his tentacles better, how to work the slight magic in his body in the little ways he can. Victor teases him more about how he was born twice, that he was something weaker and different before, that his memories of then are far shorter than his memories of now.

That drives Yuuri up a wall.

And yet… there is something about the relief etched across Victor’s face the moment Yuuri releases him that makes Yuuri keep coming back. The warmth that seeps from Victor travels deep within Yuuri and lurks in his bones, fading throughout the day until it’s night again, and Yuuri _craves_.

Victor likes to tease with small touches, but he never does anything more than that, just taking the what Yuuri offers.

They talk sometimes. Victor will mention where he’s from, just as cold as the arctic waters that Yuuri has traveled, but it’s fascinating. Yuuri has never walked in the snow. He’s never seen the traditions that Victor describes, or worn those clothes. Yuuri hesitates a little in telling Victor of his own family, but the way his eyes light up when Yuuri mentions them loosens his lips.

Other times, they simply sit there. Victor will often close his eyes, and Yuuri is allowed to stare. Even matted, his hair is a brilliant silver, and his long lashes are the same color as they brush his cheeks when he leans onto Yuuri.

Victor trusts Yuuri implicitly.

Yuuri has seen how humans react to his full form, to the horror of what he is. It is not this. Never this.

Tonight, Yuuri allows himself to touch a little. He starts slowly, waiting for any word from Victor to stop—but if anything, he melts. Yuuri lets a tentacle wander into Victor’s hair, brush against his cheeks, eventually giving in and touching Victor’s lips just the way Victor had to him

Victor’s eyes flutter open at that. “Are you teasing me?”

“Are you?” Yuuri finds it harder to get flustered at Victor the longer they’re together, and he likes it. He likes being used to him. “You’re still not giving me much information.”

Victor raises his eyebrows. “Are you so sure?”

“Yes.” Yuuri almost rolls his eyes as he brushes aside Victor’s redirection. He doesn’t want games, not right now. “I have a question for you to answer tonight.”

“Oh?” Victor sits up a little straighter. “Do ask. I can’t promise I’ll answer, however.”

Yuuri hesitates. This question has been lingering in his mind since it was brought up the first time—but he thinks that Victor’s the only one that he wants the answer from. Maybe it’s because he has a chance of explaining it, maybe it’s because he doesn’t want to frighten the Nishigoris, butno matter the reason, he still asks, “I have a mark on my back that I didn’t know about. I’d like you to tell me what it is.”

Victor smiles. “Oh, I would very much like to see that. Turn around, then.”

Yuuri frowns at him, with how lightly he’s taking this, but he still removes his grip from Victor, letting his tentacles retreat and ignoring Victor’s slight pout at that. Instead, still kneeling in front of Victor, he turns, and pulls away the clothes that he’s wearing, belatedly wondering if perhaps he should be embarrassed, or shy.

But Victor’s sharp gasp distracts him.

Before Yuuri can even ask him what or why, there’s a brush against the skin of his lower back, and it’s Yuuri’s turn to suck in a breath.

Victor presses his hand to the skin of Yuuri’s back and it _burns._ It shocks in an electric way, in a way that sparks and races up his spine, and down to the tips of his toes. He wants more. He needs _more_.

As if Victor knows, he presses his hand firmer.

Yuuri barely chokes back his broken gasp.

“It’s a handprint,” Victor murmurs, adjusting his touch so that it takes Yuuri a moment to realize what he means. “It’s… oh. That’s beautiful.”

The marking on his back—no wonder Yuuko was confused by it.

Yuuri’s tentacles flow from his lower back, he knows this. Just as his claws curl from the darkness on his fingers, he supposes that it makes sense that there’s a marking there.

But what doesn’t make sense is what it is.

Of all things, why would it be a handprint?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why, I wonder? ouo
> 
> As always, thank you so, so much to [stammiviktor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stammiviktor/pseuds/stammiviktor) for being an amazing beta, and thank you guys for reading!!! <3 
> 
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	4. Taste

It shifts

Whatever it is between the two of them, it shifts.

Yuuri hasn’t had a word to describe their relationship before now, nothing really fit. He doesn’t hate Victor, even though he probably should for how he teases Yuuri, treats him as something different than the creature he is, but he doesn’t. Maybe Victor annoys him, but Victor has made him laugh on occasion, too. Yuuri hasn’t laughed in centuries, probably, not since he last saw his family.

He… he cares for Victor in some strange, twisted way, perhaps. He’d never admit it out loud, least of all to Victor, but that might be what he’d define it as.

This, though… This is different.

The next time that Yuuri visits Victor, along with teasing and poking at Yuuri with his words as always, he _reaches_ toward Yuuri as if he can't remember that he's restrained.

And that… it makes something in Yuuri break. He's not sure exactly what it is, or what it changes, but he feels a snap in his chest as he steps forward and unlatches the shackles before Victor finishes talking.

Instead of sitting a little ways from Victor, Yuuri sits beside him that day and from then on, their sides pressed together.

Victor's hands no longer stay still with Yuuri so close. His fingers and palms gently brush along Yuuri's tentacles before he grows braver and moves onto Yuuri's skin.

It’s not like it’s any different, his skin and his tentacles both have the same nerves, but it _feels_ different. Holding Victor with his tentacles was reactionary, it was necessary, and it was nice and warm but it was to serve the purpose of to hold Victor up, to support him.

These touches… they’re luxurious. They’re indulgent. The heat of them is _more_ than they were before, and every once in awhile Victor’s fingers wander until he brushes that strange handprint on his lower back and Yuuri hisses in a gasp as he _burns_.

Yuuri’s pretty sure that Victor only does it for the reaction with how he smirks, and Yuuri will scowl at him, but… he doesn’t mind.

Truth be told, he likes it.

He shouldn’t get attached to a human like this. What he should do is turn around and start moving onto a new town, finding new information and sources. His time in Hasetsu has taught him more human behaviors than he had before, and he thinks he can blend in anywhere well enough.

But the more time passes, the smaller and less significant that reasoning gets. He recognizes that this should worry him, that if it were about anything else besides moving on, it would worry him.

But instead of trying to listen to it, to spend his days with the Nishigoris’ arranging travel and planning his next move, he starts to think of gifts to bring to Victor.

He justifies them by saying that it’s mostly food because he’s so thin, and if he dies of starvation on Yuuri, he won’t be able to give any more information that way—but sometimes he’ll be out on the beach helping Yuuko or Takeshi with their work and he’ll see a seashell and wish he could bring it to Victor, or he’ll be in town and see a shiny necklace or soft, comfortable clothes and wish that he could give them to Victor.

He can’t, of course. There’s nowhere for Victor to hide those sort ofthings from his captors. But the way his face lights up when Yuuri brings him bits of meals and small treats, the way he lets himself cling tighter and explore Yuuri’s skin as he tells bits and pieces of his life and his knowledge and Yuuri begins to understand him… It makes Yuuri dream about more.

Victor is mortal. His life will come and go in a blink of Yuuri’s eye, he shouldn’t get attached. He shouldn’t care.

He does care.

He cares very much.

Every day it becomes more and more of a temptation to just take Victor from this horrible room and those awful shackles and run away from here. But Victor said no. Victor may be a terrible tease about keeping his word, keeping Yuuri coming back with scraps of information, but he has kept it. And Yuuri won’t betray him, but…

“Victor?” Yuuri asks quietly, even as he doesn’t want to disturb the moment. Victor’s back is slouched against Yuuri’s chest and letting all his weight rest in Yuuri’s arms and his tentacles, obviously exhausted—he’s both morbidly curious and doesn’t want to know what happens to Victor during the day.

Victor hums sleepily, blinking his eyes open. “Oh, I owe you your information, don’t I?”

“What? Oh, yes, you do. But not that yet.”

Victor’s eyebrows raise. “You don’t want the information?”

“Oh, no, I do.” Yuuri tightens his grip a little, and does his best to ignore how Victor shovers and relaxes even more into his grip. “I just… why don’t you let me take you from here? Why do you let them continue to do this to you?”

“You want to anger the gods of the gods?” Victor scoffs softly, fully awake now.

“No, I don’t.” _But I would,_ hangs unspoken between them, unspoken but heard. What’s the worst they could do? Kill him? What is he living for nowadays, anyway? The need for knowledge about what he is, who he is, doesn’t claw at him like it used to. Not while he’s with Victor. The past still matters to him, but it feels… right, here. “But you know I would protect you as best I could. What life are you going to live here? You might even die before the elder gods could be bothered to notice and do anything about it.”

Victor laughs without humor. “Maybe if my guard weren’t here, they wouldn’t care or know for centuries. But you would have to destroy them to free me, and that’s too much for a creature like you.”

Yuuri bristles. “You underestimate me, Victor.”

Victor pulls his arm free of Yuuri’s grip, reaching up and tapping Yuuri’s nose before letting his fingers trail down along Yuuri’s cheek and dropping further until it rests on his neck. “Maybe you overestimate yourself.”

“No. Well… I don’t know if I could kill something like myself, but I would try. And what would it matter, anyway?” Yuuri only resists the urge to lean into Victor’s touch for a moment, a bubble of warmth and confusion blooming in his chest.

He still understands _none_ of this.

Victor goes still. “What do you mean?”

“Well, if I don’t succeed, I die.” Yuuri shrugs. “And what would change then, other than I don’t visit you anymore? At least I tried.”

“ _Stop_.” Victor’s grip on Yuri’s neck tightens, though not painfully so. “Don’t even joke about that sort of thing.”

“I’m not joking, I mean it. What does it matter to you what I do?” Yuuri frowns, even as the words feel wrong in his mouth. Maybe they’re too far? But it’s how he feels… isn’t it?

“I care, Yuuri. I care about you more than…” Victor’s hand trembles on Yuuri’s neck. “Yuuri, if you died, I would have no reason to keep fighting. Don’t joke about that. No matter how short my lifetime in imprisonment is, I won’t survive any longer without you coming to visit me—or at least existing somewhere out in the world.”

“That still doesn’t answer my question.” Yuuri uses his words softly, even as he squirms inside. He wants Victor to care—but this is ridiculous. They’ve known each other for weeks, and all that’s to their relationship are these times of physical contact and vague conversation. He reaches down with his own hand, brushing Victor’s cheek and letting himself have a rare moment of exploration. “Why do you care?”

“I…” Victor swallows. “Is that your question?”

“This isn’t about what I am, or what you owe me.” Yuuri’s fingers wander, barely touching, and Victor’s eyelashes flutter.

Victor’s quiet for a moment before his eyes focus, all of that unbelievable blue locked onto Yuuri. “Isn’t it, though?”

Yuuri’s frown deepens. “I don’t understand.”

“No, I suppose you wouldn’t.” Victor lets his hand drop, instead reaching back and wrapping his arm around Yuuri’s waist as best he can. “But I think you know some of it already. I think you know that things here aren’t right.”

“Here?” Yuuri doesn’t let his own touch falter, not now. “As in with you? Or this castle? Or this town?”

“All of the above, I suppose.” Victor’s eyes still search his, and Yuuri’s terrified he’ll look away wanting. “You’re too smart not to have noticed something, no matter how much I wish you wouldn’t. I should have let you walk away without calling out for you, but I… I couldn’t let you come so close without seeing your face. Though it isn’t as if you didn’t know something was here, anyway. It’s why you came to the castle, isn’t it?”

Yuuri’s mind whirs, fluttering from thought to thought like a hummingbird. He came to the castle because he was stubborn and wanted to prove Takeshi and Yuuko wrong, yes. But he was fascinated with it before he’d been told not to go. He saw this building, massive and looming as humans like to make them, and needed to get in. He needed to know. He needed to find…

Yuuri frees his other hand from where it is against Victor’s side, instead reaching out and taking Victor’s face between his fingertips, leaning over him as he looks up at Yuuri.

Victor is nothing that Yuuri’s ever known before. He would remember that blue, he would remember the sweep of those eyelashes, the curving of his cheekbones. He’s the most handsome human that Yuuri’s ever seen—perhaps the only handsome one Yuuri’s ever seen. He’s not sure. None of them have caught his eye like Victor. And it isn’t that he isn’t capable of caring for human beings other than Victor, he appreciates Yuuko and Takeshi and their children. He would call them friends. He would protect them too, if they were in danger. He would lay down his life for his family as well, though they aren’t

But this… it’s always been different with Victor. Not better, not worse, just… different.

Yuuri feels along the skin of Victor’s face, fragile and sunken yet beautiful all the same, _searching_. Why is it so important that he keeps coming back? Why is it so important that Victor’s free? Why is it so important that he stays?

It doesn’t make sense, but it’s never made sense. He doesn’t have a reason why _here_ is where he chose to come up onto land. His reasoning for staying in this town is weak at best. Humans are terrified of him normally, he’s had to kill many a human so they would stop trying to kill him.

But not Victor.

Never Victor.

He smiled when he saw Yuuri. Not a sneer, not mocking, not pitying. He’s never looked like that about anything, Yuuri almost wonders if he’s even capable of it. Instead, he was _happy_. Overwhelmingly happy for a man chained to the wall, half-dead, with no life of his own. And if Yuuri had to put another word to it, he would say it was a fond sort of smile. Which he shouldn’t have been _fond_ , just having met Yuuri. Unless…

“You.” Yuuri leans in a little closer, holding the sides of Victor’s face as he looks up at Yuuri’s face. “I… Did I know you?”

It’s impossible. So ludicrous that Yuuri almost doesn’t even say it. Victor is mortal, he should be dead if he’d been alive this long.

Unless he isn’t mortal?

He doesn’t feel like a god, but then again, neither do Yuuri’s family. They have magic, but it’s faint to Yuuri’s senses, familiar and usual. This castle has always felt strange, but… what if it’s not the castle?

“ _Yuuri_ ,” Victor breathes reaching up to take Yuuri’s face between his own palms with shaking fingers. “My Yuuri. My precious one. You knew me once, a very long time ago. Before you were even you.”

“Why didn’t you just say that when you first saw me?” Yuuri tries to scold, but it comes out too soft to be anything but a whisper. He knows this man. Maybe he can’t remember it, but for once, something makes sense. Something clicks into place in his mind, and he’s not entirely sure what it is.

“I can’t, I— I shouldn’t be telling you now. It’s too dangerous here, Yuuri.” Victor gives a shaky smile. “I’ve been selfish with your time, and your safety. It… it’s just been so _long_ , Yuuri. I’ve been alone and in pain for so very, very long. But I can’t give you the information you want, you have to know this by now. You should go.”

Yuuri bristles slightly, his tentacles firming their grip around Victor without being too tight and making him give a shaky breath. Well, that isn’t fair, is it? If Victor’s allowed to be selfish, then so can Yuuri.

“No. I will not go,” Yuuri murmurs, before he leans in slowly enough that Victor could turn his head if he wanted, and kisses Victor.

Warmth blooms in him, sparking from everywhere they touch and settling in his chest, burning faster and brighter as their lips move, as their mouths part and they breathe in each others’ breaths.

It’s familiar but completely foreign, just like everything that Victor has inspired in him. It’s so much, too much—but not nearly enough.

He pulls away, ignoring the noise of protest from Victor as it quickly turns into a gasp while Yuuri’s tentacles draw him upright, and seat him in Yuuri’s lap, pressed together as close as possible.

“Wow,” Victor breathes, before he leans in and fills in any negative space left between them.

This is better, so much better. He feels more of Victor, his heat seeping into Yuuri and beginning to settle lower, below his stomach. And Yuuri… Yuuri _wants_. He craves everything about Victor with a passion that might scare him if he could think about it.

But he can’t. Everything is Victor. His lips pressed to Yuuri’s, his thighs wrapped around Yuuri’s waist, his fingers beginning to search beneath his clothes and stoking the flames.

Yuuri is on fire, and he could not care less.

Maybe Yuuri was wrong before. Maybe Yuuri understands how humans can worship gods. Maybe he can understand laying your life and heart and soul in someone else’s hands and trusting them with it. He knows he shouldn’t. He knew Victor once, a long time ago, and now he’s only known this man for a few weeks, but…

Yuuri takes Victor’s hips in his hands, shifting then, making both of them gasp, Victor trembling in his arms—

Oh.

Yuuri pulls back, meeting Victor’s eyes. “I-I’m sorry. That was— It was too much. You aren’t…”

“ _Yuuri_.” Victor brings his arms up, letting them rest on Yuuri’s shoulders as they wrap around his neck. He’s taller than Yuuri, and Yuuri had never been able to notice before but it feels right—of course it feels right. “I could have stopped it if I wanted to. You would have listened to me, wouldn’t you?”

Yuuri nods without hesitation. “But you’re… You’re not safe or healthy here, and you only have me for company. You shouldn’t feel forced or… Or have to settle.”

Victor hums, leaning in a little closer. “Maybe you have a bit of a point, about your first concern. But I have never settled for you Yuuri, and I never will. You’re something to strive for, and nothing less.”

Yuuri’s breath hitches and tears burn at his eyes—and he’s not even entirely sure _why_.

Victor takes that opportunity to lean in closer, to press their lips together more gently, more fondly, more… lovingly. And Yuuri burns in a different way, melting underneath Victor’s touch until he’s not even sure what he is anymore, _who_ he is. This creature so entwined with another is not the same Yuuri who arrived on the beach of Hasetsu. That Yuuri never felt so warm, so alive, so _loved_. He had his family but that was different, so different—

“You!”

They break apart, Yuuri jumping away slightly as his tentacles grip Victor as tightly as he dares.

It’s one of the guards, dressed in odd fitting armor, no eyes visible beyond their mask, their stance odd. Their voice is strange, too, almost as if it doesn’t ring through the air but inserts itself directly into Yuuri’s brain.

Yuuri should fight. Should guard Victor. He should do… _anything_.

But he senses something. Something familiar, something powerful. Like…

Like a god.

“Run,” Victor hisses, breathless, and Yuuri doesn’t need to look at him to know that his eyes are wide, terrified.

He takes a step back even as his mind fights it. Fear reaches up through him, cold enough to chase away Victor’s warmth, cold enough to make him want to run even though he needs to stay. He needs to _stay_.

“Yuuri.” Victor’s voice is stronger now, and it makes something in Yuuri stir. “Run. Don’t look back, don’t come back. _Run_!”

Yuuri wants to stay. He tries as hard as he possibly can to keep his feet to the ground, but Victor’s voice makes something in him break, makes it _flood_ , and his feet move of their own accord as that frigid fear races through him.

It’s familiar in the same way that everything in Hasetsu is, but he can place memories to this one. It’s a feeling that’s never left him entirely.

It’s the fear that crept under his skin as he left the safety of living with his family for the first time, the voice that whispered _stay safe_.

It’s the warning that echoed in his ears as he considered stepping on land for the first time, murmuring _don’t come back_.

It’s different from all of the feelings that seeing Victor brings up in him, but it’s his voice that rings in his head, _take care, I love you_.

His chest heaves as he finally forces his feet to _stop,_ and his legs collapse underneath him on hard, wooden floors.

Yuuri blinks. He… he made it all the way back to the Nishigori’s house? But it hasn’t even been that long. He couldn’t have been that fast. What just _happened_?

No, that doesn’t matter. He needs to catch his breath, and he needs to go _back_ , damn the fear, damn the fact that it’s a god, it’s _Victor_ —

Who is Victor?

 _What_ is Victor?

“You’ve been going to the castle, haven’t you?

Yuuri starts, glancing up and finding Yuuko leaning up against the wall.

“I…” Yuuri swallows, still trying to catch his breath.

“Don’t bother making excuses. I felt like it was useless to keep you away, but that’s what he told me and Takeshi to do.” She shrugs, casual. Like Yuuri isn’t panting on the floor in front of her, like he hasn’t broken the one rule that she laid down.

“But… why? What?” Yuuri’s thoughts are half-formed, muddled by adrenaline and buried under a mountain of questions.

“He didn’t want you stumbling onto your past. Even if he’s not the one that can give it back to you.” She smiles a little, her eyes meeting Yuuri’s. “I am.”

“How?” Yuuri feels like he should have more to say, that maybe he should catch his breath, but he has to know, he has to get this information and get back to Victor.

“I told you a long time ago that this town had a patron god, didn’t I? Well, you see, Takeshi and I were the only two servants of that god to have made it through the disaster, and we were told to stay here until our time came.” Yuuko gives a wry smile. “Little did I know it would be hundreds of years later. We’ve moved around a lot, throughout the centuries. But when the triplets came along, I knew things were changing and we had to travel back. I knew our god was returning.”

Yuuri stares at her for a long moment, his mind racing around itself, getting caught in circles. “But I’m not a god.

“No.” Her smile fades a little, her eyes dropping. “ _You’re_ not.”

But then…

Yuuri shakes his head. “We can talk about this later, I have to get back, he’s in trouble. There’s a man I the castle, and—“

“And they won’t kill him, trust me. If he’s made it this far, they can’t.” Yuuko walks over and kneels in front of Yuuri. “Before you go back, before you make this choice, you need to know. You won’t survive this if a part of you is locked away like it is.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me from the start?” Yuuri snaps, his feet itching to _move_.

“Because the guardian of the castle would have known you were there the moment you stepped in if you had your memories. But now it seems like there’s no reason to hold them back. Right?”

Yuuri nods, unable to do anything else. All this time and the answers were right under his nose? It’s too easy. It’s too simple.

Yuuko returns the nod as she reaches forward, taking a deep breath and pressing her thumb against Yuuri’s forehead.

And it is that simple.

His vision frays, tears apart and blurs at the seams as the world seems to fall away… and he remembers. He knows.

It was a long, long time ago when he lived in Hasetsu. He can see all of the changes in his mind’s eye, how many shops have switched hands, all the families that have come along, how this city has grown so much. It had been so small back then. It had been less.

And yet… It was infinitely more.

Because back then, Victor was free.

No. Not Victor.

 _Vitya_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh ho ho, time for the inevitable reveal ouo These boys seriously can't keep their hands off each other, smh.
> 
> Thank you so, so much to [stammiviktor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stammiviktor/pseuds/stammiviktor) for betaing! And thank YOU for continuing to read, and bless everyone who comments!!! I had a lot of fun writing this fic, so I'm glad you're all enjoying it. :D
> 
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	5. Scent

Yuuri knew he was in love with Hasetsu’s god the moment that he saw him as a child.

To be fair, everyone had loved Victor. Hasetsu hadn’t had a god in generations, and then this one decides to call their small, seaside town home? It was a blessing that no one had expected, and it had saved Hasetsu. Even as the onsen struggled, out on the outskirts of town as it was, the port itself flourished. This god with flowing silver hair and sharp blue eyes would even join sailors on their fishing trips—or, at least, he used to when Yuuri’s father was a child.

After all, a god of ice and water doesn’t need to be in the water to make sure that it behaves the way he wants it to.

Instead, Victor stays in the shrine—the castle, really—that the residents built to him in offering. He doesn’t ask much from the townspeople, though rumors of him having a couple of sacrifices in the past floats through the rumor mill from time to time, with no evidence to back them up. He just asks for priests and priestesses to help take care of his home, to dance, and to attend to certain duties so he can focus on the sea, and Hasetsu is happy to provide.

Yuuri isn’t sure how old he was when he first sees Victor—though he wouldn’t have called him _Victor_ back then, nothing so personal. All he remembers is clutching at his mother’s skirts as the procession went by, a group of priests escorting Victor down to the water, where he would give his yearly blessings.

The Katsukis never had the time to go down and watch the ceremony itself with too much work at the onsen to be done, but they made time to watch the procession, to show their children who it was that they paid their tithes to despite not having much themselves.

And Yuuri understood when he saw Victor.

He resented Victor a little before this, he thought that he was a selfish god, but the loose way he smiled, how he stopped to talk to anyone who approached him, blessing children and elderly and the ill on the spot, and his eyes—

Those brilliant blue eyes, bluer than the ocean on a calm, summer day, were sad.

And instead of anger, Yuuri found something that he wanted, something that settled like a seed in his chest, only growing larger and more overwhelming as he grew.

He wanted to make Victor’s eyes happy.

Ever since that day, given half the opportunity he would chatter almost non-stop about Victor, and his parents would smile indulgently at him, even while Mari teased him. He had to do _something_ , he wanted to do _anything_ …

He didn’t find out what that was until he made his first and only friend in town, Yuuko.

She shared his obsession, if she was a little less determined than he was, and she said when she grew up she would be a priestess.

And so Yuuri told his parents he would be a priest.

He didn’t understand the weight of that statement until he was older, until he saw how they struggled as he left early to visit their old family friend, Minako, to learn how to dance, or when he went with Yuuko to peek into the god’s gardens to see what the priests were up to, what they would have to learn—but they said yes. They told him to pursue his dream, and he did. Before he knew it he was an adult and the guilt laced heavy across his shoulders. He shouldn’t leave them… but he wanted nothing else in the world.

In the end, he did leave. He would still be in Hasetsu, but priests rarely left the grounds unless their god asked it off them. But he would do his best to earn honor for them, maybe to gather the blessing of the god and attract more customers to the onsen.

He didn’t, of course.

The training was strict. He and Yuuko more often than not spent time cleaning, and tending to the gardens. They learned to dance like the other priests did, in honor of their god, but they were never allowed to do it for him personally.

Well, not Yuuri, at least. Yuuko made quick friends with one of the more experienced priests, and he helped her move up, but Yuuri was always too shy, too happy to fall to the shadows.

Five years passed with Yuuri just living to catch glimpses of Victor from afar; at the end of opulent hallways, half-obscured by sakura petals as he sat in the garden, one magnificent time he caught the barest glimpse of him _dancing_ as he passed a half-shut doorway.

Until one of the priests meant to dance for Victor fell ill, and Yuuko volunteered Yuuri for the position.

They weren’t as close as they once were, so Yuuri didn’t feel comfortable so much as arguing the privilege. Before he knew it, he was practicing with the others, he was wearing their clothes, and he was up on a stage before Victor.

Yuuri had never been directly in front of the god before. Even when he’d gotten too old to hide behind his mother’s skirts, he would stay at the fringes of the crowd, settling for glimpses. Victor was so much. Too much. He couldn’t have faced him.

He still doesn’t feel like he can face him now. Yuuri walks out in front of Victor and stands completely still, unable to look up, unable to move—and then the music starts, and _that_ is something that Yuuri knows, that he’s known since he was small, that is interwoven so deep into his instincts that he can’t help but move.

He closes his eyes and flows through the movements that he’s been taught, that he’s been practicing for years upon years, and before he knows it, it’s over. He didn’t fall, he didn’t mess up too terribly, and maybe he was a little stiff, but hopefully not enough to let their god down.

Yuuri dares to open his eyes, to look at Victor—

And the creases around his eyes… they aren’t sad. It’s the first time that Yuuri’s seen anything else on his face. That’s all he can notice for a moment until he realizes _where_ Victor’s looking.

At Yuuri.

Gaze unwaveringly pinned on Yuuri, the blue not just endless and stunning, but _burning_.

It catches on Yuuri, something of him sparking and warming, and he’s not sure what, or where. He just knows that even as it makes him uncomfortable, it makes him want… want _something._

“Will you dance for me again?” Victor’s voice is smooth, slightly accented but so entrancing that it takes a moment for Yuuri to parse out the words in them. “Just you.”

Yuuri’s breath hitches, his cheeks burning—but he nods. He can’t help but nod, taking just a moment to look around at the others. He thought surely this must happen sometimes to others, this isn’t the first time Victor’s requested this. But the other priests’ mouths are dropped, their eyes wide, all of their pristine manners dropped. So it seems safe to assume otherwise.

He’s not sure exactly what it means, but that fire in him burns brighter for it.

Victor dismisses everyone in the room; there are no dancers, no one to play instruments, no one to cater to Victor’s needs—

Except Yuuri.

So with Victor’s eyes burning into him, through him, he _moves_. He starts off as stiff as he was before, but… but he _likes_ having Victor’s eyes on him, only him. It’s more than he ever would have dreamed as he stayed hidden away from Victor, tucked away in his own home. He loves his family and misses them dearly, their few letters barely enough to fill the gap where they used to fit into Yuuri’s chest. He feels terrible about them, having abandoned them to pursue a silly dream. He had known he was never anything special, that he was just _Yuuri_. He will never be more than that.

But with Victor’s attention consuming him, devouring him and making him anew in his gaze, he lets himself pretend that he’s not just Yuuri. Pretend that he is more, that he is _enough_.

He dances until his legs give out, until he needs air so badly he can barely breathe, and somehow, beyond all sense and logic, Victor is _still_ staring at him. And he’s not only staring, but he’s moving closer, standing up and striding toward the collapsed heap of Yuuri on the ground, and Yuuri can do nothing about it. He can’t protest, he can’t stand, he can’t run.

He doesn’t even know if he wants to run.

Victor kneels— _kneels_ — in front of Yuuri, reaching out to gently take Yuuri’s face into his grasp. “Fascinating. You create music with your body, did you know that?”

Yuuri’s brow furrows. He would have heard it if he’d made music with his body. That’s just ridiculous.

“Watching you move…” Victor continues as his eyes search Yuuri’s face. ”Watching you move is like hearing the music, it’s like _feeling_ the music. It’s beautiful. I’ve never seen a mortal like you.”

“Th-thank you, my lord.” Yuuri tries to bow his head, but Victor doesn’t relinquish his grip, guiding Yuuri’s face right back up to look at him.

“Don’t call me that, please.” He smiles, just a little. “Call me Victor.”

“I-I couldn’t—” Yuuri begins to argue until he realizes who he’s talking to. “I mean, yes, my— Victor”

Victor hums, his smile growing a little more. “Your Victor?”

Yuuri sucks in a breath, biting his tongue. Of _all_ the stupid mistakes to have made, of _course_ he says that.

Victor, blessedly, and far more kindly than Yuuri deserves, moves the conversation forward. “What’s your name?”

“Yuuri,” he barely whispers, trying to grasp that this is actually happening, and it’s happening to _him_ , and it not just some strange, sacrilegious dream.

Victor breathes a little sigh. “How long have you been here, my Yuuri?”

Yuuri’s face heats with something besides exertion. “About five years now, my…” Yuuri stops himself before it’s too late.

Victor’s eyes nearly sparkle, like water gleaming in the sun. “Five years? I’ve had you here for five years and this is the first I’ve seen of you? This is tragic. I suppose we’ll have to make up for lost time. Won’t you join me for dinner?”

Yuuri blinks. “Don’t you eat alone?” There have been many rumors as to _why_ Victor eats alone among the priests, even though they prepare and clear his food themselves, knowing it’s just an average meal. Maybe he doesn’t actually eat, maybe he eats human sacrifices from other towns, those sorts of things.

Maybe he’ll eat Yuuri.

“It’s a habit to eat alone, but I don’t mind sharing from time to time.” Victor finally relinquishes Yuuri’s face, only to trail his hands down Yuuri’s arms and take his hands, lifting him up. “Come along, now.”

And what choice does Yuuri have but to follow after him? He could protest, or make excuses, even if outright saying no would be unthinkable—but he doesn’t want to.

They come to the dining area, a large table on the floor, and Victor sits down. Yuuri almost moves to sit opposite from him, but Victor motions for him to sit next to him, and again, Yuuri could say no, but he doesn’t _want_ to.

Even though, in retrospect, he should have. He’s too close to Victor to focus on anything, not even food after a long session of dancing. He picks at what’s laid out in front of them, unsure what his stomach can handle, but when Victor notices, he tuts and begins feeding Yuuri with his own chopsticks.

 _That_ Yuuri protests, but Victor doesn’t seem to take insult, he just… he pouts? Yuuri explains that he shouldn’t lower himself to feed a mortal, that he’s fine, that Victor should worry about himself. And Victor doesn’t push, he just keeps pouting, giving a sigh and turning back to his food, and… and Yuuri is weak.

He lets Victor feed him.

After they finish their meal and Victor takes Yuuri’s hand again, loose enough that Yuuri could pull away, but he doesn’t, just trailing along behind Victor—

Until they reach Victor’s bedroom.

They’re a few steps in before Yuuri realizes what this room must be and he completely freezes. Victor takes a step before Yuuri’s hand slips from his.

He turns back, frowning. “Yuuri?”

Hearing his own name on Victor’s tongue is so much, almost too much. Yuuri shakes his head slightly, trying to focus. “I-I didn’t realize you wanted to… to, um. Take me to your bed.”

Victor’s brow furrows. “There’s enough room in my bed for two. More, even.”

 _More_? Yuuri’s face burns. “I didn’t know that you used your priests for… such pleasures?”

Victor blinks for a moment before he smiles. “Oh, you mean for me to lie with you as a lover? I’ve never met a mortal so bold.”

“I’m s-sorry my lord—“

“Victor,” he corrects.

“V-Victor.” It feels blasphemous to have Victor’s name on his tongue In this situation, and yet he covets the feel of it on his lips, the fact that he _can_. “I… I didn’t realize this was a requirement for my position. I thought we j-just danced, assisted you how we could, and took care of your needs.”

Victor takes a step back toward Yuuri, lifting his hand and trailing his fingers along Yuuri’s jawline. “I don’t do this sort of dance with my priests. Not unless they want to. Do you want to, Yuuri?”

But they don’t even _know_ each other.

A laugh nearly bubbles up Yuuri’s throat before he catches it. That doesn’t matter to most people, does it? Not when there’s a literal god in front of them, not when they’re given the chance of a lifetime.

Except still Yuuri doesn’t want it. Not like this.

He shakes his head, heart racing in a frantic, drumming beat in his ears. He’s refused Victor before, but this is…

Victor smiles. “That’s okay, my Yuuri. Maybe another time. Maybe not at all. But will you sleep with me? My bed is far too big and far too lonely.”

Yuuri lets out a small breath of air. That was easy. Almost too easy. Just sleeping in the same bed as Victor doesn’t seem like anything compared to Victor’s other offer, so he agrees.

And it takes him far too long to realize how intimate what he agreed to still is. Some of Yuuri’s sleeping clothes are here already somehow, but Victor strips down to nearly nothing before crawling into the bed.

Luckily Victor was right and the bed is very large, and Yuuri can comfortably lie on the other side without so much as touching Victor. And Victor just smiles and wishes him goodnight before the lights fade and… Victor sleeps.

His face is gentle and so at peace and so _vulnerable_ like this. Yuuri has to wonder how on earth Victor trusts him like this so easily after simply watching him dance.

But as he drifts off to sleep, he can’t find it in him to protest.

The next day Yuuri expects things to return back to normal, for him to go back to his usual duties, but Victor still takes Yuuri with him everywhere, asking if Yuuri would like to come with him to witness his daily blessings, to sit with him while he manages things for the town, even just lounging in the gardens, and one time, he asks Yuuri to dance with him.

Thinking back to their conversation in Victor’s bedroom, that’s the one thing Yuuri refuses. Being that close… it’s a little too much for him.

The next day follows the same pattern, and the next day, and the next day. Yuuri sees Yuuko in the hallways sometimes, and they exchange baffled looks until they get a chance to talk. Yuuri sometimes comes to share a meal with her and Takeshi when Victor is busy with other things, and they don’t seem nearly as confused as Yuuri once they know the details, less questioning why Victor chose Yuuri, and more wondering why Victor’s never had a human companion—at least so far as anyone remembers—before Yuuri.

It builds within Yuuri, this nagging question. Victor is the most stunning thing that Yuuri’s ever laid eyes on, and he’s kind of blunt sometimes and… Yuuri’s done nothing to deserve him.

Finally, inevitably, the question bursts out of Yuuri’s mouth without him hardly thinking about it. “Why?”

Victor stops chatting away, food half-raised. It had been a normal, if quiet, meal before Yuuri had opened his mouth. And now the comfort of their silence is gone and Yuuri wishes he could have it back.

“Why what, my Yuuri?”

Yuuri still flushes when Victor says that, but it’s more of a soft warmth than an uncomfortable sort of heat. “W-why me? Why am I with you right now? There’s nothing special about me, and I… I don’t understand.”

Victor just stares at Yuuri, eyes searching Yuuri’s face for a moment before reaches out and gives his food to Yuuri, instead of setting it back down.

It should probably embarrass Yuuri, how much Victor enjoys taking care of him. He’s always been an independent sort of person, but how Victor cares for him never takes away his choice, or his agency, doesn’t get under his skin like it would with anyone else. He could refuse this food right now, he has before, but… he likes it, so he accepts the offered bite.

Victor’s following smile is less of his usual beaming, a softer curve to his lips. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken. I’m here with you because of that exactly, because you _are_ special.”

Yuuri opens his mouth to protest, but Victor raises a hand.

“I was first enamored with you because of your dancing, of course. Everyone who dances for me gives their best performance, and they perform well, but it’s false. There’s rarely anything behind it. But you… you dance what you feel into existence, a natural force, a fire feeding on the wood and the air. Even without music, you create it, you make me feel unlike I’ve felt in years.”

“But I…” Yuuri dances well, but not exceptionally. And if all Victor wants is his dancing, how come he hasn’t asked Yuuri to dance again? Sometimes Yuuri will go off and practice, but Victor never invites himself along.

Victor glances away, but only for a moment. “And then, knowing you? Being with you? I had wondered if your one exceptional quality would be dance, but it isn’t. You listen to me where everyone else only worships. You tell me no when others would only tell me yes. You are beautiful, and brave, and kind unlike anyone I have ever met, mortal or otherwise.”

Yuuri swallows, clasping his hands together in his lap. “But I… I’m just me. There are dozens of others like me.”

“Perhaps.” Victor finally sets down his chopsticks, instead reaching out and taking Yuuri’s face between his palms, brushing his fingers along Yuuri’s cheekbones. “But in my many years of life, you’re the only one like yourself that I’ve met. You may think so poorly of yourself, but I would rather spend my time with no one else but you.”

“Oh.” Yuuri breathes, taking a long moment to just stare at Victor, to feel the warmth of his touch seeping into his skin. Victor’s touches are plentiful, but after that first day, they’d been brief and fleeting. This, though… Yuuri likes this.

Victor smiles, triumphant in a way Yuuri doesn’t understand, and then pulls back, giving Yuuri another bite of food that he accepts without hardly a thought, his head too full to think past it.

From then on out, everything is more… tactile. Victor will occasionally reach out and brush Yuuri’s cheek, or his neck, or his arm or his hand. And Yuuri starts to take his hand when it comes close to him, to walk next to him instead of a step behind him when they go down the halls together. Lines blur even farther as Yuuri tentatively lays his head on Victor’s lap one day as they lay in the gardens, and Victor begins to stroke his fingers through Yuuri’s hair. Even when they fall asleep on the opposite sides of Victor’s giant bed, they end up in each other’s arms, meeting each other in the middle.

And then when Victor asks Yuuri to join him in dancing, Yuuri does.

Yuuri’s seen Victor happy, but it’s nothing compared to the wide, heart-shaped grin he gives when they’re in each other’s arms, moving across the floor not as two people, but as one motion, one being entwined together. And when they finally slow, exhaustion weighing at Yuuri’s bones, he reaches up and cups Victor’s face between his hands.

He hesitates, though. It still feels wrong, in a way. Victor’s been Yuuri’s god his whole life, he’s been untouchable—he _shouldn’t_ be touched.

But Yuuri loves touching him. He loves holding him and being held, he loves…

Victor leans forward, pressing his forehead against Yuuri’s and closing his eyes. “You never have to do anything you don’t want to, you know that don’t you?”

Something warm and overwhelming sparks in Yuuri’s chest, spilling over into a shaky sort of smile. This isn’t just his god he’s speaking to anymore; this is his Victor. “I know.”

And Yuuri leans in and kisses him.

Victor holds him tightly as Yuuri presses in closer, as they close any remaining space between them and feel each others’ heat, feel each others’ skin, drown in the wonderful spark of being so close and so… so _much_.

Victor pulls back first, breathing deeply as he reaches up and brushes Yuuri’s hair from his forehead. “My Yuuri.”

Yuuri grips Victor even tighter. “M-my Victor.”

Victor beams. “Always.” Then he opens his mouth again, closes it, and opens it again. “But not Victor.”

Yuuri tilts his head a little, frowning. “What?”

“Where I come from, there are other versions of our names, diminutives, that people close to us use. Softer names. I’d like you to…” He takes in a shaky breath. “Please call me Vitya.”

Yuuri blinks up at him, his flushed cheeks burning impossibly hotter. “My Vitya.”

Victor sucks in a breath before he leans in and presses his lips to Yuuri’s again, and they don’t do much more talking after that.

Yuuri’s not entirely sure how much time passes from then on, the hours blending into days, days blending into weeks. He dances with Victor, he dances with the other priests, and he attends to his duties as well—but Victor’s there now, too. He helps Victor in his blessings and tasks to do with maintaining the town. And Yuuri… he’s happy. In a way that he’s never really been before, he’s satisfied. In what he’s doing, with who he’s with…

It’s nice.

Until it’s not.

The news comes on a sunny day, a nice day in the middle of spring before the true heat and humidity of summer rolled in. It shouldn’t have been a nice day, but it was.

He doesn’t remember who told him, or where he was. He just remembers how the ground fell out from underneath him as his stomach plummeted. He remembers standing there until the light went dark, until Vitya himself came looking for him, sitting on the ground in front of Yuuri and taking his hands, lacing their fingers together.

“What’s wrong?” Vitya asks, voice a little unsteady. “Yuuri?”

Yuuri blinks a few times, just trying to focus on breathing for a while. “There’s some sort of plague. Outside of the shrine, there’s…”

Victor frowns, but he nods. “The news came yesterday. I can’t cure the illness, but I can stop it from spreading now that I know it’s there. It will be okay, Yuuri.”

Yuuri shakes his head, squeezing his eyes shut. “N-no. My family, they… they have it. They’re at the edge of town, they were one of the first to get it, days ago, before they knew what it was. And they couldn’t get treatment because they couldn’t afford it—” Because Yuuri was _selfish_ and he left to pursue his own dream instead of helping out and not letting his parents and sister run themselves into the ground, and now they’re—

They’re going to die, and Yuuri’s not going to be there. He should have at least _visited_. Yes, priests shed their old lives in service of their god, but he knows Victor would have let him go, he would have let any of them go.

“I… you have to…” Yuuri tries to breathe, but it’s coming too quickly, too much and too little all at once. “Please. If you… I can’t. I can’t have this happen to them. I’ll do anything. If you need to sacrifice me to save them, I’ll do _anything_ —”

“ _Yuuri_.” Victor grips his hands tighter, but Yuuri can’t see his expression, the tears beginning to fall down his face. “Yuuri, I can’t…”

“I just—” A sob tears up Yuuri’s throat. They were nothing but supportive, and what has he done? Abandoned them to some terrible fate while he was so focused on himself that he didn’t even think of them as often as he should?

Vitya’s grip becomes painful, but Yuuri doesn’t care. He doesn’t want him to let go, because if he lets go…

Yuuri doesn’t know what he’ll do.

“Okay,” Vitya murmurs. “I… I’ve been considering something like this for a while, but the cost for four people… No matter. It doesn’t matter.”

“W-what doesn’t matter?” Yuuri tries to blink away his tears. “What—“

Victor leans forward, pressing his lips to Yuuri’s forehead. “A world without you isn’t one worth living in. And if you’re not happy, there’s no point, is there? I will make you happy, my Yuuri.”

“What do you mean?”

Yuuri can finally see well enough to make out Victor’s face, to see the sad smile there. “I mean that I can save them, and make sure that you’ll all be together for as long as you live.”

“But?” Yuuri can hear the word there, sitting on the tip of Victor’s tongue.

“But things will change. I’m not sure exactly how, this isn’t… it isn’t typically allowed for my kind, most definitely not for so many people. But you will keep on living, and so will they. You’ll have the lifespan of a god.” Victor looks down as he says it, not at Yuuri.

“And you?” Yuuri whispers. “What about you?”

“I…” Victor clears his throat. “You won’t be able to see me. For a very long time, at least.”

Yuuri shakes his head. “No.”

“This is the only way, my Yuuri.” Victor still won’t look up at him, and Yuuri doesn’t know _why_. “I’ll make it so it’s as easy as possible on you, but this is the only choice if you want to save them.”

And Yuuri has to. He has to make this better, and this is the only way. “But I don’t want to leave you.”

Victor looks up as Yuuri’s voice cracks, tears leaking from his own eyes. “I know. I don’t… I don’t want this, but there’s no other option. I don’t want to lose you, and you don’t want to lose your family, and I…” Victor takes a shaking breath. “Yuuri, my Yuuri. Please let me.”

Yuuri doesn’t want to. Everything in him screams to say _no_ , to run and not let Victor do this.

But then he’d have to live the rest of his life knowing that he held his family’s life in his palms, and he let them die anyway.

So he does the only thing he can do.

He nods.

Victor gives him one last shaky smile before he leaning in and wrapping his arms around Yuuri, one of his palms sneaking beneath Yuuri’s clothes and pressing against the small of his back, something burning in Yuuri where their skin touches. Victor’s warm breath brushes Yuuri’s forehead as he murmurs, “Stay safe, and don’t come back. Take care, my precious Yuuri. Be happy. Remember that I love you.”

And then his lips press against Yuuri’s forehead, and Yuuri feels… he feels warm. That fire spreads from where Victor’s palm is pressed against him until he’s warm and wrapped up and _loved_ in a way that consumes him, drowns him to the point that he can’t figure out what’s going on. He knows he’s walking. He’s eventually aware of others near him, of the water rising around him and everything _changing_ as he grows limbs that he’d never had before. It’s so fast and so blurred, like it’s the least important part of his life as opposed to the most.

But the feeling and the haze fades, until it’s gone, until it drains him of all of his warmth and his memories, until he’s no longer Katsuki Yuuri and he’s just a creature of the deep, looking to fill that emptiness in him.

The only thing he has left are Victor’s last words resonating within his mind over and over again, until they became less than words, a pure, base feeling that has rested at the base of Yuuri’s skull, forever haunting him with their feeling and with their meaning. It’s an itch that needs to be scratched, even as Victor said to forget, to move on, to be happy.

The fool never realized the irony of his words.

Yuuri can be happy with his family, yes, but he’ll never be as happy as he is with Victor.

The same words that drove Yuuri away in the first place are the same ones that brought him back.

And this time Yuuri won’t be leaving without Victor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S TIME, YUURI'S HERE TO KICK BUTT AND NEVER LET VITYA GO AGAIN
> 
> Also, heads up that the rating and the tags changed. ouo Don't expect anything too crazy, but! Yeah!!!
> 
> As always, thank you so much to [stammiviktor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stammiviktor/pseuds/stammiviktor) for betaing, and thank YOU guys for continuing to read!!! We're getting close to the end, hoo boy owo
> 
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	6. Pain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Possible TW: There’s some monster fighting and injuries in this chapter! No MCD or anything like that, I absolutely would have warned for it if there was, but if you’d like more details, feel free to leave a comment or shoot me a DM!

Yuuri gasps, his eyes fluttering open as he pushes himself upright.

Vitya, Vitya, _Vitya_.

Vitya knew he was going to be in this kind of trouble. He _knew_. But he still did it anyway, and now he— he’s—

“Whoa, steady there.”

There are hands on his shoulders, keeping him from attempting to stumble to his feet.

“Let me— Oh.” Yuuri blinks up at a familiar face, two sets of memories clashing. “Takeshi.”

Takeshi gives his usual smile, always bright. “It’s good to see you up. How are you feeling?”

“I…” There aren’t really enough words or enough time for Yuuri to say how he really is. He’s more confused even though he has all the answers he could have dreamed of. He understands more behind how he is the way he is, why he thinks and feels the way he does. And he feels— He feels so _much_. He hadn’t even realized how much of himself had been locked away behind the pain and the longing and now he… he’s so confused. Who is he, really? And he still doesn’t really know what he is.

But, physically, he’s the same as ever. Or at least, the same as he has been since Vitya said goodbye all those years ago. Power, different than Vitya’s and yet eerily similar, thrums underneath Yuuri’s skin, waiting for him to call on it. If anything, it feels… more than it ever had before, like part of it had been hidden away with those memories of his old life.

Takeshi doesn’t need to know all of that, though. So Yuuri nods. “I’m fine. How long was I out?”

“Just under a day— Hey, take a minute before you start moving, you need to wake up a little before you storm the castle.” Takeshi presses a firm hand to Yuuri’s chest, frowning at him.

Yuuri bares his teeth a little, tempted to let his tentacles loose, to lift Takeshi out of the way and go.

But he has a point, and Yuuri needs as much information as he can get before he goes back to Vitya. He only knows so much about this whole situation.

“Will Vitya—Victor be okay?” Yuuri manages to ask, leaning back a little.

“Don’t worry, the guardian of the castle won’t find you here. His only purpose is to destroy threats, and to report if Victor does anything wrong.”

“But hasn’t he done something wrong? Will it have been reported?” Vitya escaped his bonds and was with Yuuri, neither of those things seem to be okay for him to do, considering.

Takeshi shrugs. “Victor’s outlived his punishment. From what Yuuko and I saw of what went down, there was only meant to be a hundred years of this. But he hasn’t died and the elder gods don’t care anymore now that he’d paid his dues. He keeps hanging on, and the castle hasn’t been vacated and Hasetsu hasn’t been abandoned or destroyed. In fact, it only grows. The people here think that there’s a spirit in the castle that took up residence there once the god vacated, and many think it protects them. Little do they know that their god is still in there.” Takeshi grimaces, looking at the floor. “We tried to keep people praying and believing, to hopefully give Victor some sort of power, but…”

But Vitya doesn’t look like he has an ounce of power at all. He looks like exactly what he is, a god that has been drained and beaten down for centuries, starved for touch and for anything that isn’t that cell.

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri whispered. “If I hadn’t asked for this…”

Takeshi claps a hand onto Yuuri’s shoulder. “Victor made that choice from what I gather.”

“Yeah, but you suffered because of it—”

“No, we didn’t.” Takeshi gives a wry smile. “Victor gave us this task, making our lives as long as we needed to accomplish it. We got to see the world, and then some.”

“But the other priests...” Didn’t Yuuko say something about a tragedy?

“We suddenly couldn’t enter the castle, no regular old human could. Some of them left and abandoned their god, and some of them turned and decided to try burning down the castle in revenge for that treatment.” Takeshi shakes his head. “That didn’t end well for them.”

Yuuri frowns. They were once his friends and companions, he supposes, and he should feel some sympathy… But it seems so ridiculous. Burning down the place that kept them fed and clothed and happy because the god disappeared? He hopes the people he was close to were the ones that moved on without becoming that bitter toward a god that was nothing but kind to them. It’s so pointless.

But then, his own life has been pointless for so long, he doesn’t have much room to judge.

“I’m still sorry. This has affected so many people…”

Takeshi shakes his head. “You know, when you first came here with those weird markings, I was worried. You weren’t like yourself, you were… I don’t know what to call it. Empty? But being back home has done good things for you. You wouldn’t have worried about this when you first came back up on land.”

Yuuri snorts softly. No. He wouldn’t have. “Me worrying about things isn’t a good thing, though.” Not when he has to go face… _whatever_ that creature is.

Takeshi rolls his eyes. “It means you care. It means you’ll fight harder. It means you’re you, even with those weird, black markings.”

Yuuri almost decides to tell him what those markings turn in to, but he doesn’t know how Takeshi would take it, so he sets that aside for later. “I guess you’re right. It’s just… this is such a disaster.”

“And now you’ll fix it.” Takeshi nods.

But what if he doesn’t?

No. _No_. He’s had this body for longer than he was a human, he knows how to wield it. He has the tricks that Vitya’s taught him. He’s Vitya’s only hope. There’s no choice but to win this battle.

“You will,” Takeshi says the words firmly, absolute faith in them.

Yuuri can’t help but wonder how he can say that after everything. He hasn’t known Yuuri for such a long time, and they’re both so different… But it’s a bit of a comfort, all the same.

Takeshi places his hand on Yuuri’s shoulder. “Are you ready?”

Yuuri almost laughs. There’s no being ready for this. Maybe if he was a god, he would have a better chance, but Yuuri doesn’t even know _what_ he is. He can take guesses, but Vitya never told him. And Yuuri wants the opportunity to ask. He wants to see Vitya, to touch him, to take him away from that terrible place and hold him and make him feel as loved as he should be.

So Yuuri nods.

“Yuuko’s with the kids, but she wanted me to tell you good luck.”

“Thank you. I—” Yuuri glances down. “Thank you. For everything.”

Takeshi huffs a laugh. “This isn’t goodbye, don’t talk like it is. I’ll see you later, okay?”

Yuuri smiles, brushing off Takeshi’s hand before he stands, and his power seethes under his skin, tugging and pulling him. It has to be Vitya, he has to be pulling Yuuri closer whether on purpose or not. Their souls seem to call to each other no matter their form, no matter what or who they are. He has no choice but to answer his Vitya. Yuuri gives a quick nod. “Okay.”

And he leaves.

It’s day time. It isn’t that he doesn’t know how to get to the castle while it’s light out, he knows it intimately from both of the lives that he’s lived. It just doesn’t feel as safe this way. Still, he runs as fast as his legs can carry him, barely keeping his tentacles hidden beneath human skin—if humans saw him and tried to kill him, it might slow him down, and he won’t risk that.

He slinks through as many alleys as possible, circling the castle like he’s done every night and leaps into the gardens.

It’s different. They’re overgrown, barely cared for, but… He used to spend so much time with Vitya here. They spent so many hot days lounging beneath the shadows of the trees, slowly learning each other and growing closer, falling into a casual intimacy that Yuuri never put into words like he should have.

Yuuri never told Vitya that he loved him.

He sucks in a breath, squeezing his eyes shut as his chest aches. He hasn’t felt pain like this in so long, and he both hates it and loves it. He hasn’t felt anything like this in _so long_ , but Vitya should always know he’s loved. At least, somehow, a part of him always knew that; the part of him that couldn’t stop holding Vitya the moment that he was able to; the part of him that was warmed just by being around him. But the things he said, and what he _did_ while he didn’t remember who Vitya was—

He needs to see Vitya.

Yuuri opens his eyes and slinks forward. He could scale the wall up and check Vitya’s room like he always did, but the tugging in his chest says that isn’t where he should go, that Vitya’s closer to the ground than he ever was before.

So Yuuri moves swiftly but silently, alert for any movement besides his own, and slips into a window closer to the ground.

He sucks in a breath. Everything is almost exactly how it had been when he was here as a priest, not even a speck of dust on the walls or the decorations. It’s like he could turn the corner and find Vitya striding toward him in warm, luxurious robes, a brilliant smile splitting his face. And Yuuri wants that. He wants it so much that everything in him burns.

But nothing is the same as back then. There’s no taking back the life he’s lived since then, the choices he’s made, this body that he now inhabits. Even if he mourns the past now that he finally can, at least like this he can do something about Vitya’s suffering. He can’t go back to how they were, but he can bring Vitya to a new happiness.

He slips through the hallways, silent as a shadow himself, beginning to understand where he’s going before he even gets there.

By the time he steps into the hall where he used to take his meals with the other priests, the pull is so strong that it’s a physical pain in him, and he needs to see Vitya, to touch him, to know that he’s alright.

But the sight of the room makes him still. It’s completely empty. It’s the first thing he’s seen that’s been drastically changed from what he remembers, all tables and mats and cushions removed, the decorations on the wall gone.

But there’s one thing in the room, something that doesn’t belong. Something that Yuuri needs more than anything else.

“Vitya!”

Yuuri runs toward were Vitya hangs. He’s suspended higher than he had been in the other room, his toes just brushing the ground, and his arms held up above him at an awkward angle. As Yuuri gets closer, he can hear his ragged breathing, he can see bruises and marks that weren’t there before, and he sees _red_.

“Yuuri?” Vitya’s eyes flutter open, their inhuman blue dull until they land on Yuuri, and then they almost seem to glow.

How did Yuuri ever think of him as anything less than a god?

Yuuri doesn’t respond with words, instead reaching up and undoing the chains—the locks a little more complex this time, but not the hardest that Yuuri’s ever managed to undo—all the while wrapping his spare tentacles around Vitya, careful to avoid any marks on his skin, but to support him and comfort him and let him know that Yuuri’s got him.

The chains and their cuffs drop to the ground. Yuuri brings Vitya closer, running his hands through Vitya’s hair, carefully ignoring the matted and tangled bits. “Vitya. My Vitya.”

Vitya’s entire body gives a violent shudder and a choked, high-pitched sort of whine escapes his lips, and Yuuri wraps his human arms around Vitya, lowering them both to the ground.

“Y-you…” Vitya sucks in a gasp of air, weak hands clawing at Yuuri’s sides with desperation for touch, for contact.

Yuuri holds him as tightly as he can, with every limb he can. “I’m here. We’ll be okay.”

“But you…” Vitya can’t stop shuddering, needing to take a moment before he can get more words out. “You remember. You remember and they’ll know you’re here. You have to go, Yuuri. They’ll come for you. Go.”

“Good.” Yuuri presses his face to the top of Vitya’s head. “Let them come. I’m not leaving without you.”

Vitya nuzzles in a little closer, even as he tenses, huffing a warm puff of air against Yuuri’s skin. “I was hoping my commands would work on you like they had before, when I first gave you power. But you’re your own creature now, aren’t you? You’ve grown more powerful than what little of me that I gave you.”

Yuuri frowns slightly. “What does that mean?”

Vitya shakes his head. “I gave you… a seed, I suppose. Something powerful that blossomed over time, though not too large or you would be noticed if you ever came close. Now though…” Vitya pulls back just enough to look up at Yuuri. “Oh, my love. You’re so gorgeous, like this.”

A bit of warmth spreads across Yuuri’s cheeks, even as he wants to shrink away. Something in him squirms, something that he never felt before he remembered his past. Before he remembered what he was before, what Victor had loved back then. “But I… I’m monstrous.”

Vitya frowns for a moment before leaning forward and pressing their mouths together, grazing Yuuri’s lips with his teeth in a way that never fails to make him shiver. “I love you like this,” he murmurs against Yuuri’s skin. “I love your power. I love how you hold me, how you surround me, and…” Vitya trembles, and Yuuri knows that this time it’s different. It’s not from fear or relief this time.

Yuuri opens his eyes to find Vitya’s pupils blown wide.

“Oh,” Yuuri murmurs, shifting the grip of his tentacles and watching how Vitya leans into every touch as best he can.

He’s never shied away from Yuuri, no matter his form—this really shouldn’t come as a surprise. He’s clung to Yuuri’s touch no matter which limb he touched Vitya with. He should really have learned to stop mistrusting Vitya a long time ago, but it’s been ages since they’ve even seen each other… “You shouldn’t have done this, Vitya. You don’t deserve this.”

“I would give you the entire world if I could, my Yuuri. This is a small price to pay.” He smiles a little, a soft twist to his lips. “If we make it out of this, I would love to meet your family. I’m happy they’re still here—that you’re still here. No matter what has or would have happened, I would have made the same choice over and over and over again.”

Yuuri pulls Vitya a little closer, his head tucking neatly beneath Yuuri’s chin. “No. Never again, Vitya. What’s done is done, and whatever punishment may come later, we’ll take it together. You won’t ever have to bear anything like this alone, not ever.”

A quiet, shaking sob tears its way free from Vitya, and Yuuri doesn’t comment on it, doesn’t bring up the warm, wetness soaking into his clothes, how Vitya manages to grip him tight enough to leave bruises. He just pets Vitya with his hands, holds him with his tentacles.

“Once the guard is gone,” Vitya says, voice wobbling. “We should be free. But…”

“But?” Yuuri kisses the top of Vitya’s head

The doors slam open behind them.

Yuuri jumps to his feet, gently but protectively holding Vitya behind him as his claws form at his fingertips, and he bears too-sharp teeth at the intruder.

There are a handful of the guards at the door, moving forward in tandem with the same, odd, jerky movements.

“You came.” They say as darkness begins to seep from their armor, milling around them. “Knew you would.”

“Yuuri.” Vitya grabs at his tentacles. “Please…”

“If you’re going to ask me to run again, I won’t.” There is little that Yuuri has ever been absolutely certain of in his life, but he knows where he stands in this. If Vitya could take this awful, horrifying punishment for hundreds of years, this is the absolute least he can do in return.

“I know.” Vitya gives a humorless laugh, one that Yuuri wishes that he could turn and kiss away—but he knows better to take his eyes away from the armored guards as the shadows seethe around them. “Please be careful. Come back to me, my Yuuri, no matter what.”

Yuuri caresses Vitya as he pulls away, trying to convey how he feels in every touch. “I’ll stay by your side forever. Just wait for me.”

“I’ve waited centuries, and I’d wait centuries more.” Vitya murmurs, so soft that Yuuri can barely hear it.

“You won’t wait that long, never again.” His Vitya deserves whatever he wants, and Yuuri intends to give it to him.

“Fools,” the guard murmurs, a hum in Yuuri’s brain—except it isn’t guards anymore, not plural.

In front of him stands a large creature of armor and shadow, a long tongue flicking out of a void where a face should be to taste the air. As it heaves a breath, the creatures draws a sword from its scabbard that’s blacker than the night, the blade eating at the light around it.

Yuuri’s sure this should intimidate and frighten him. The air surrounding this thing screams _god_ , and that should make Yuuri want to slink away.

But this fear was never truly his to begin with, was it?

Vitya’s words all those years ago are still there, still remembered. His fear of land, his fear of gods, his fear of new. But they don’t control Yuuri. They can’t.

He doesn’t let fear seal its vice around his heart as the darkness on his hands and his back spread across his skin. Instead, he remembers Vitya as he first found him in that tiny, dusty cell as black paints patterns on his skin and his claws and teeth sharpen. He remembers the weakness of Vitya’s grip and the shaking of his touch-starved fingers searching Yuuri’s skin as his form grows, as he lets his own power consume him and burn at him from within.

Fear is the last thing he feels.

But oh, is he _angry_.

With an inhuman, shrieking howl, Yuuri charges forward, striking out with as many tentacles as he can.

The creature swings its sword with no hesitation, all signs of jerky movement gone as Yuuri can barely react before the blade digs into a tentacle.

He hisses, pulling away slightly—but he isn’t as soft as the sea creatures he resembles. It would take more than that to slice completely through him. He pushes the sword aside, lashing out again with as many limbs as he can. But the armor is tougher than the materials that mortals use, and it only dents under his assault. But no matter. He jabs through the cracks between armor, and… there’s nothing. It’s just pure shadow.

The creature swings again, faster and harder and the black blade cuts into Yuuri even as he tries to block it.

Yuuri lets out a terrible screech, the building quivering at the sound. He lunges forward, sinking his tentacles all around and into this creature, slashing and stabbing and denting.

The creature stumbles backward, slamming into the wall, the structure cracking and creaking beneath its weight. But it’s not enough to stop it. The sword swings like lightning, sinking into the more delicate flesh of Yuuri’s shoulder.

It stings and it burns, not the cool cut of metal but tearing into him like something that would like to devour him.

 _No_. This thing doesn’t get to do that to him. It doesn’t get to hurt him or Vitya, not anymore.

Yuuri’s tentacles sink through the shadowy hand that grips the sword, instead wrapping around the handle and _pushing_. His limbs shake between pinning the creature to the wall and pulling the sword from his flesh, but the creature trembles, too. There’s a stand-still for a moment before, finally, one gives.

Yuuri slams the sword and the creature’s arm against the wall, everything creaking and crumbling at the contact—but the building can burn for all Yuuri cares.

He presses closer, baring his teeth as he tries to find a weakness, tries to find anything.

But there’s nothing there.

Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he and Vitya should have run away the moment that they could, try to spend the rest of their immortal lives running from this thing and the gods that control it.

But what kind of a life is that? After so long of being held captive against his will, is that what Yuuri’s going to subject Vitya to? A life of fear, of never finding home?

Yuuri refuses.

With a howl, with Vitya’s pain and loneliness and agony burning through him, he reaches with his free tentacles, wrapping them around the shoulder plate of this thing’s armoring, stabbing it hard enough to pierce it, and then he _pulls_.

Something tears, vicious, like skin from flesh, and a sharp noise resonates through Yuuri’s mind like a scream.

He hopes it is a scream.

The shoulder plate peels away from the darkness, and Yuuri flings it into the corner of the room, far from Vitya and from this thing, no chance that it could reclaim it. The creature doesn’t stop its noise, pushing and writhing against Yuuri.

But Yuuri has no mercy for a being like this.

He turns his focus to the rest of the creature’s arm, piercing and ripping the rest of the armor off with precision as darkness bleeds from the creature and settles around him, flooding the floor. He turns to the thing’s chest, pulling and tearing it away piece by piece as it stubbornly stays attached, until it’s gone and all that’s left is the pulsing darkness beneath. Yuuri moves to the other arm—

The wall groans. It cracks and shudders and before Yuuri can react, they fall through.

The dust and darkness of the creature wash over him, his limbs losing their grip as he falls—and finding nothing in the precious second that they have to search for his enemy. He hits the ground hard enough to knock the wind out of him, something sharp scraping along his head. Everything swims, but Yuuri still tries to roll over, to ground himself by feeling, trying to find where the creature is.

Something steps on one of his tentacles, nearly crushing it. Yuuri hisses before he can help it, and in the half-second it takes to realize his mistake, something slides into and through his shoulder.

His hiss turns into a scream—but now he knows where the thing is. He reaches out following the edge of the blade and wrapping himself around the creature again, forcing it to stay where it is, even as it struggles in Yuuri’s grasp. But he doesn’t have the upper hand here, there’s no wall to pin it against, and he can’t risk flipping them over without injuring himself further or letting it slip free. If he lets go, he can get stabbed again—and he doesn’t know his own weaknesses. He doesn’t know if getting stabbed through the heart or having his head cut off by that unnatural sword would end his life.

He tries to shift his tentacles, to find another piece of armor to rip off, but that slight movement almost lets it slip free.

Yuuri’s stuck, pinned to the ground. And on top of that, his head can’t seem to get on straight. Everything is darkness, and yet the floor doesn’t feel steady beneath him. He’s not sure if it’s because of the injuries and possible blood loss, or hitting his head, or both. And he’s not sure if whatever he’s done to this thing were critical injuries, or if it will recover. All he knows is he doesn’t have too much time left, and his options are shrinking by the second, and…

And something changes.

There’s _light_. In the cover of Yuuri’s vision, there’s a glimmer. It glints off what remains of the creature’s armor, and it helps Yuuri adjust his grip from what he can see and sense, hold it more securely as it begins to growl.

The light grows, and maybe Yuuri should be afraid, should worry, but he isn’t and he doesn’t. Because as the light moves closer, he realizes that the light isn’t yellow, or golden. It’s silver, like the fan of eyelashes and the fall of hair that he’s known so well.

“You’ve hurt us enough.” Vitya’s voice resonates in a way that Yuuri hasn’t heard in years, in centuries, dripping down his spine in a shiver of relief. He sounds like the Vitya that inspired awe in him all of those years ago, the Vitya that told him to dance, the Vitya that told him to run away.

This… This is Yuuri’s Vitya.

The light grows blinding, overwhelmingly so, the creatures growls turning into desperate snarls as a being just as great as them—no, _greater_ —steps into view. Vitya’s hair flows unlike it has in ages, every inch of him radiant, blue eyes slicing through the darkness. And between his hands is a rope of gold—

No. Not a rope, the chains that bound him.

Yuuri holds the creature as it struggles harder, keeping it as still as possible while Vitya climbs up it, and then wraps the chains around its neck. Vitya sneers. “There are no gods left to have mercy on you.”

Vitya snaps the chains tight around its neck. For a moment Yuuri thinks that it won’t do anything, that it can’t to anything—his tentacles found nothing there.

But the burning gold catches around a core of night, pulling tight against it. Still, nothing changes besides being able to see, and Yuuri’s grip begins to slip as the beast thrashes harder.

At least until the thrashing slows, becomes jerks. The darkness in its core cracks, shatters and begins to seep out light.

It screams, but neither Vitya nor Yuuri relent as the darkness within it begins to flake away like ash, splitting and bursting until the beast gives one last, keening howl, and collapses in on itself, pieces of armor clattering to the ground before that, too, breaks apart within the light.

And Yuuri… Yuuri collapses, his limbs falling against the ground as his form shrinks without his permission, conserving what precious energy that he has left.

Familiar hands come to touch him, come to caress him, but everything’s too bright. He wants to hear, but his ears are ringing. He wants… he wants so much.

But for now, all that matters is that Vitya’s safe. After all these years, Vitya’s safe, and content, and happy…

And for the first time in as many years, Yuuri’s content as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do I have a thing for BAMF Yuuri? Yes, yes I do.
> 
> As always, bless [stammiviktor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stammiviktor/pseuds/stammiviktor) for betaing this accidental beast of a fic! And a thank you for all of you guys for reading and commenting and sharing!!! <3 <3 <3 Only one chapter left, holy cow?!
> 
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	7. Comfort

The first thing that Yuuri notices as his mind stirs to consciousness is that it’s warm. That isn’t really unusual. Hasetsu gets hot and humid in the summer; it always had and it always will. What is unusual is that he’s _comfortable_. Not in the same way that water is, the lovely weight of it surrounding him, and it isn’t the light blanket and stiff mat that the Nishigoris’ gave him that he’s barely spent any time in.

No, there’s a dry, warm weight on him, and his body sinks into the luxurious bed beneath him. It should be strange, but in a way he’s more fond of it than water.

Without needing to see, he knows this is Victor’s bed.

Yuuri’s eyes flutter open, and for a moment he’s content. It feels exactly like it used to all of those years ago. The room is bathed in the golden light of morning, and weariness pulls at his bones. Victor used to laugh at how grumpy he was in the mornings, how long it took him to rise. He joked that he had no idea how Yuuri ever became a priest considering how early they had to rise to attend to their duties. Once, towards the end, Yuuri threw a pillow at him for that, and it made Vitya giggle and tease him all day.

But now…

The battle flashes through Yuuri’s mind, sizzling down his spine and striking through his heart. Vitya. He was okay the last time that Yuuri saw him, but what if the gods came for Vitya, to continue his punishment, or do something new, something worse. Yuuri’s fine, he heals faster than any human and there’s just a slight ache in his arm from where he’d been speared, but _Vitya_. Yuuri pushes himself up—

But he flops back onto the bed as he’s tugged down, the skin of his back pressed flush to a firm, familiar chest, warm in a way that only sleep makes someone.

“Yuuri,” Vitya breathes at Yuuri’s ear, his breath ghosting along Yuuri’s skin and setting his nerves on fire. “You’re awake. Mmm, good.” Vitya presses his lips to the sensitive skin behind Yuuri’s ear.

Yuuri gasps softly, leaning back into the tender touch for as long as Vitya gives it, then turns in his arms to look at him.

Yuuri sucks in a breath, his eyes going wide. Vitya's skin practically glows with health, the absolute opposite of how it’s been throughout the weeks of Yuuri learning to know him again. His beautiful eyes are sleepy but bright, and… “Your hair.” Yuuri reaches up to comb his fingers through Vitya’s silver locks, wondering at the short, clean fringes of it.

“Oh.” Vitya blinks, eyes focusing on Yuuri a little better as a crease formed across his forehead. “I’m sorry, I knew you liked it how it was, but it was so tangled and matted and filthy, and… I could have fixed it, probably, but I didn’t want to remember it how it was.”

“Vitya. That’s not…” Yuuri mumbles, reaching up to gently scrape his nails along Vitya’s scalp, his fingers moving slow as they explore every length of every hair. “I liked it because it was _yours_. It’s still yours. I’m sorry that you were forced to cut it, if I had come sooner…”

Vitya’s arms tighten around him. “If you’d come sooner, you might have been killed.”

Yuuri frowns. Maybe he would have, maybe he wouldn’t have. If it was before the end of Victor’s punishment… Well, there’s no use speculating. What’s done is done, even if regret stings in the back of Yuuri’s skull. He moves a little closer to Vitya. “I hate that they took anything from you that wasn’t your choice.”

Vitya gives a lopsided smile and a half-shrug. “Well, I kind of like it like this. What do you think?”

“I love it.” Yuuri murmurs before pushing himself up a little, pressing his lips to Vitya’s hairline, his forehead, his nose, his cheeks, before finally landing on his mouth where he stays for a while, sucking and nibbling lazily as their bodies become impossibly more entangled, wrapped around each other as best they can be while Yuuri doesn’t have his tentacles to help him.

Vitya’s mind must wander in the same direction, a hand drifting down until he presses it firmly against the skin of Yuuri’s lower back, his touch burning and sparking against the black handprint, the mark that Vitya himself must have left, eons ago.

“Where are they?” Vitya almost whines, biting gently at Yuuri’s lip.

Yuuri takes a moment to settle, to adjust to the touch that sparks something deep in him. He’s not sure why it does that, exactly. Maybe that’s because that’s where Vitya’s power and his love had sunk deep into his bones, the familiar touch dredging up memories that Yuuri didn’t always know he had. Maybe because it’s where Vitya had split him open, discarded his mortal skin and where he can still easily slip beneath. Maybe it’s just because it’s Vitya, and Yuuri can never really feel anything but love from his touch.

“What?” Yuuri finally manages, a little breathless as he clutches Vitya closer.

“Your lovely tentacles, where are they? Do they hurt to come out? Do they take too much energy? You’ve been through a lot, I understand if you can’t.”

“I can,” Yuuri answers, before flushing and ducking his head, tucking it beneath Vitya’s chin. “It doesn’t take much energy at all to use them, they’re a limb like any other. I just...”

Vitya clucks his tongue, but reaches up to run the fingers of his hand not pressed to Yuuri’s back through his hair, stroking in slow, soothing motions. “Do you remember what I said to you before you faced my guard?”

Yuuri’s face flushes a deeper red as his mind dredges up the memory, and he nuzzles into Vitya’s chest. “Yes.”

“I meant it.” Vitya kisses his head. “You aren’t monstrous to me. You’re beautiful. And I… It’s nice to be held how you can hold me now. To be surrounded, and safe.”

Yuuri almost scoffs. “I can’t keep you safe. You had to kill the beast yourself, in the end.”

“And I couldn’t do that if you hadn’t almost destroyed it in the first place. You tearing it to bits released my power, and…” Vitya’s quiet for a long moment, but his fingers still move, and he still holds Yuuri tight. “To make me suffer, they didn’t just take away my powers, they gave them to my guard, to use against me. So long as I was alive, it would keep draining and eating my powers until I…”

Until there was nothing left to give. But Vitya kept fighting for all these years until Yuuri came along, and now…

“I still wish I had come sooner.” Yuuri presses a long, lingering kiss to Vitya’s skin, smiling a little as Vitya’s breath hitches. “I wish I had been worthy of you. I wish I was now. But you’re you, you’re a god, and I’ll never be anything close to that.”

How ironic that Yuuri had thought himself _better_ than Vitya when he found him in that cell. He had no idea that this was no man, that he stood no chance in the face of something so beautiful and kind and powerful. Yuuri is a made thing, a creature that never had any power of its own. A little like Vitya’s guard, if he’s being honest.

Vitya chuckles. “But Yuuri! You’re nearly a god yourself, depending on who you ask. I’d be happy to worship you like one if that would help convince you.”

Yuuri stiffens, pulling back a little to be able to meet Vitya’s eyes. “No, I’m—I’m not?”

But what reason would Vitya have to lie to him? He’s avoided telling him unfortunate truths, yes, but he’s never _lied_ to Yuuri.

“Yes you are. Don’t you remember everything I’ve told you about what you are?.” Vitya leans forward for a quick, indulgent kiss, as if reminding himself that Yuuri’s here and he’s allowed to have this. “My power started the change, yes, but this form you’ve taken, this power that you have and what you’ve done? That’s yours. You’ve shed your mortal form and embraced the taste of godhood that you’ve had so wonderfully and beautifully and naturally. You easily deserve your own shrine and your own priests, if you wanted them.”

Yuuri can only shake his head. He doesn’t want anyone or anywhere else. He’s lived this long without all of that, and all he wants now is in his arms.

“I cannot stop you from leaving, Yuuri.” Vitya’s smile fades a little as he leans in and rests his forehead against Yuuri’s. “But I want you. I chose to sit and wait in that cell for so long I can’t even count the years because of you, because of the chance that you were still alive, and out there, and that I might catch one more glimpse of you before I wasted away. I would do it again and again to have you in my arms as you are right here, right now. I will always choose you no matter your shape or your form. I would have stayed with you until the end of your mortal life. I would love to live with you forever as the gods that we’ve become. Above anything else, I am yours. No one else could ever hope to claim me, not after you.”

“And I…” Yuuri can barely manage to get out words past the lump in his throat. This is too much. It’s too good to be true. But isn’t that how it’s always been with Vitya? Maybe nothing makes sense, but even if it’s nonsensical, Vitya has always been absolutely clear on where he stands. “I’m yours. As long as you’ll have me.”

Victor’s mouth slips into a smile so large and so beautiful that it’s vaguely heart-shaped, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Then we will be each other’s forever.” He presses his lips to Yuuri’s, just brushing them together. “Until the stars die and the universe is dark, and even then.”

Yuuri reaches up and tangles his fingers into Vitya’s hair, tilting his head so that his mouth opens and Yuuri can slip inside.

Vitya hums his encouragement and wraps his hand loosely around the back of Yuuri’s own neck, urging him closer, deeper, asking for more.

His other hand stays pressed against the marking, though.

Yuuri shivers as he lets himself consider what Vitya wants. It feels selfish of him to let his true form show right here, right now. The only reaction it’s ever inspired is fear and disgust, the only use of it was to crush anyone and anything in his way.

But Vitya brings out another side to who he’s been, hasn’t he? He’s never harmed Vitya, not even when he didn’t know who he was. He could _never_ harm Vitya. Just like Vitya could never be disgusted by him.

It’s hard to believe… But he’s trusted Vitya in every way but this one, and he’s never, ever let Yuuri down.

Yuuri pulls back a little, meeting Vitya’s eyes as he breathes out and allows himself to relax, to let his other limbs unfold from the small of his back, to bloom from beneath Victor’s touch.

Victor sucks in a sharp breath, his pupils growing wide, growing hungry.

It isn’t like Yuuri couldn’t tell that Vitya was interested before, there’s only so much to hide when the only thing covering their skin is the sheets that they lounge beneath. But it’s different, now, as Vitya lets his hand wander down an inky length, to tug it from where it relaxes and pulls it over his bare hip in a clear invitation.

And who is Yuuri to deny him?

Yuuri pulls Vitya’s face down, his face cupped between his palms as his tentacles wander, explore.

Before, in that terrible cell, Yuuri’s touch had been indulgent but practical. He held and he supported Vitya. He comforted him. Now, Yuuri touches for himself. He roams and caresses however he likes as Vitya gasps beneath him.

But it’s not enough.

Yuuri shifts, pushing Vitya onto his back, lightly enough that he could fight it if he wants to. But that’s the last thing on his mind as he falls over easily, watching Yuuri with attentive, curious eyes.

He rolls on top of Vitya, preening as his god keens beneath him. Vitya tries to rut into him, but Yuuri presses his palms onto Vitya’s hips, keeping him still while he finishes his exploration.

Vitya pouts up at him, narrowing his eyes. And that won’t do, will it? Yuuri wraps himself more around Vitya, holding him, touches slow and gentle as he leans forward and presses his mouth to Vitya’s sternum. Vitya arches beneath him, giving Yuuri room to slide tentacles beneath him, hold him like this as he moves upward in small, gentle kisses.

It’s strange how warm that Vitya is. How he smells just as human as anyone else, how Yuuri can taste the slight salt of his skin as sweat begins to bead. Like this, Vitya’s almost as mortal as Yuuri was, as Yuuri feels. And no one gets to see Vitya like this. Not one gets to touch him like this. No one gets to taste him like this.

By the time that Yuuri reaches Vitya’s chest, he’s trembling beneath Yuuri, an instrument tuned and strung beneath his fingertips. When Yuuri laps gently at his nipple, he sings.

“Yuuri,” Vitya breaths. “Yuuri, Yuuri, _Yuuri_.”

Yuuri hums gently as he sucks at Vitya’s skin, and Vitya’s arms are suddenly moving in the grip of Yuuri’s tentacles, reaching and grabbing, scrambling for purchase on the back of Yuuri’s shoulders.

“Darling, stop teasing,” Vitya begs, even as his eyes roll back with Yuuri’s ministrations.

Yuuri stops, but only long enough to move to the other side of Vitya’s chest. “Are you sure, Vitya?”

Yuuri asks to make sure Vitya is absolutely certain, but he also asks because they’ve never quite gone this far before. As a human, Yuuri couldn’t work up the courage to ask this of a god, and since their second meeting, Vitya has been endangered and too vulnerable, and Yuuri too thoughtless and confused.

But now Yuuri _wants_. He’s craved this intimacy with a need that wrapped tight around his belly for years, before he even knew what it was that he craved. Any hesitation Yuuri’d had when Vitya posed this same question when Yuuri had first stepped into this room is gone. He knows his lovely, selfless Vitya, now, and he wants to have everything with him.

Yuuri only takes a moment to make sure his teeth are flat and human before he gently drags them over Vitya’s other nipple.

“Please,” Vitya gasps, trying to move against Yuuri, to gain that friction that he so desperately needs, shuddering as Yuuri wraps himself even tighter around him.

Something in Yuuri purrs at how he says it, at how he wants this so badly that he begs. Yuuri can’t say he would be above it either, if their positions were switched. But they aren’t, and Yuuri _likes_ this. He likes knowing that Vitya wants him so much.

“Of course, my Vitya,” Yuuri murmurs, before rutting his own hips against Vitya’s warmth.

Vitya gives a moan, and Yuuri shudders, breath hitching as pleasure sparks along his spine, tingles along his limbs.

It’s so much different than anything he’s ever done before, than anything he’s ever felt. It’s so bright and warm, and Vitya’s so beautiful and so his and…

Yuuri takes a shaking breath as he wraps more thoroughly around Vitya, around _them_ , as they learn how to move together, how to make each other gasp and shudder and writhe.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that Vitya loves to be surrounded by Yuuri, that he shouts and babbles as Yuuri uses his many limbs to shift him, to move him and explore him, to find and torture him with sensitive areas that make his eyes tear up with pleasure… But it is, in a way. It’s different to hear the words as opposed to seeing the truth.

A heat builds between Yuuri’s hips, his breathing stuttering and his body shaking as he seeks out more contact, more friction, more Vitya.

Vitya has never once said or done anything that told Yuuri that he wouldn’t love Yuuri forever, that he would do anything to be with him. And Yuuri’s doubts aren’t easily quieted by logic, sometimes he thinks these things even when it’s the last thing he or Vitya deserves. But Vitya loves him. He loves his touch, his company, _him_. He’s given everything to Yuuri. And Vitya wants him like this, he wants him in every way. And Yuuri will give him anything that he wants, everything that he can. It’s the least Yuuri can do for him.

His god.

His beloved.

His Vitya.

The slow, unworried pace of Yuuri’s exploration is gone as they press together, as they gasp each other’s names, movements frantic and consumed by need. Yuuri can barely think straight, nothing beyond the slide of skin and the gasp of breath and the overwhelming pleasure building underneath his skin—

Until it breaks, everything rolling over him in a staggering wave of heat and electricity that has his vision going white, that has him drifting within the confines of his own body, only barely aware of how Vitya shifts and stutters beneath him as he reaches his own satisfaction.

It’s all Yuuri can do just to breathe as he _feels_ , as everything in him crashes again and again. He doesn’t know if it’s seconds or minutes before he’s aware of his fingers clutching at Vitya’s hot skin, of his curled toes beneath him. He becomes aware of where they touch, of the slick feel of sweat and their intimacy between them. That can wait until a little later, though.

For now, Yuuri shifts from where he’s collapsed against Vitya, moving to his side. Vitya follows, turning and curling around Yuuri, as if still starved for touch. And maybe he is. If he’s had any touch these past few centuries, there has been no love and no care to it. So Yuuri wraps around him in turn, only happy when Vitya gives a sigh of content and melts against him.

“Was that all right?” Yuuri finally murmurs, running his fingers through Vitya’s short, soft hair.

Vitya shifts to be able to meet Yuuri’s eyes, a lazy grin across his face. “Yuuri, I love you, but you’re ridiculous. That was amazing. You’re amazing. Did I do anything to make you think otherwise?”

A flush spreads across Yuuri’s face as he remembers the bend of Vitya’s back, how he chanted Yuuri’s name like a prayer, like a plea, like Yuuri is the only god that he answers to. “You didn’t, no.”

“Mmm, good.” And Vitya leans in, pressing their lips together soft and unhurried, but warm and present and there, and…

Yuuri pulls back a little, Vitya blinking at him dazedly, pouting a little. But this is important. It’s not the most opportune time, but… “I do too, you know. I love you. I’ve loved you almost my whole life, from the moment I saw you as a child.”

Vitya smiles, his eyes crinkling a bit. “I know, my Yuuri. I never doubted.”

Yuuri ducks his head a little avoiding Vitya’s gaze. “But I… I’m sorry I didn’t say it sooner.”

Vitya won’t let Yuuri avoid this, though, shifting so he can unravel an arm from around Yuuri and takes his chin tp gently tilt it up. “You told me constantly. With how you acted, with what you did for me, in how you always indulged me.” He kisses Yuuri’s cheek softly, before Yuuri feels his lips curl back into a smile. “It’s always nice to hear it, though. I wouldn’t object to hearing it more.”

Yuuri takes his turn to kiss Vitya’s cheek. “I love you,” he murmurs against his skin. He pauses a moment before moving onto his other cheek. “I love you.” His nose, his forehead, his chin. “I love you, I love you, I love you.” And finally he comes to his lips before breathing, “I love you,” and letting Vitya meet him there, an edge to the kiss that was lacking a moment ago. Yuuri tilts his head and parts open his mouth to deepen the kiss and feel Vitya, to know him and be known.

It doesn’t last too long, though. Yuuri’s a little more tired than he would normally be, after… well, after everything. Once they pull apart enough to breathe, Yuuri asks. “How long was I asleep?”

Victor considers for a moment. “Maybe a week? I’m not sure, I lost track of time. I needed a bit of rest myself.”

Yuuri pulls Vitya a little closer, holds him a little tighter. He can only imagine how long Vitya’s recovery will take, but he’ll be here every step of the way. “Do we need to move on, then? Before the elder gods come?”

“No, they won’t come. Not for a long, long time, if ever. But…” Vitya lowers his eyes, pressing his lips together.

“But?” Yuuri runs his fingers gently up Vitya’s neck until there buried in his hair, rubbing at his scalp until Vitya almost looks like he could fall asleep.

“I meant it, when I said I would like to see your family. I… I don’t want this life, the solitude of a lonely god anymore. And you love them so much, I would just like to know them.”

Yuuri smiles, and it grows wider and wider as the words sink in. “Really? I haven’t seen them in… Well, a long time. But they will _love_ you, Vitya. You’re sure, though? We could do anything, go anywhere.”

Vitya gives a half-shrug, mirroring Yuuri’s grin. “It doesn’t matter to me where we are, or where we go. So long as you stay by my side, I’ll be all right. That’s all that I care about.”

Yuuri’s brilliant happiness dims into a warm glow that fills him from head to toe as he leans forward and kisses Vitya’s forehead with all the care and reverence he deserves.

“I’ll never leave.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, outlining this chapter: Okay, Yuuri’s gonna ask if it’s safe here, or if they need to move on, or—  
> Yuuri: Nah, we’re just gonna bone  
> Me: ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> I wanted to keep the rating M so catch me in the club writing an entire smut scene without using the word “dick” or even “ass” (Vitya always has his chest on display so much that his nip nods need some attention, ok). But also be gentle me, pwease. This is baby’s first smut.
> 
> Also also, after this scene they go, find the Katsukis, Vitya is immediately adopted, and they open up a hot spring resort that does amazingly well with a literal water god working there. Victor and Yuuri have a place of their own, though, considering they kept disturbing the guests with their… activities.
> 
> As always, many thans and blessings to [stammiviktor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stammiviktor/pseuds/stammiviktor) for betaing this mess of a fic! And thank you guys for sticking around throughout this wild ride!!! I can't believe it's been seven weeks already??? Still, I hope you guys enjoyed it. <3
> 
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